It seems like the old men at the Department of Land Transport just woke up from an everlasting dream and discovered that many bus routes are overlapping, that onboard service is going downhill and that half of the Bangkok population is now riding the train. So, the uncles got together and decided, discreetly, to reroute and rename all 269 bus lines in Bangkok. Starting off with eight routes, the new system is on a one-month trial run until mid-September to see if it works. (Even a two-year-old kid can say it won’t.)
Now, read slowly so you don’t get confused (like we did). The Department of Land Transport plans to recategorize the public buses in Bangkok into eight zones
- Zones 1 and 2 (green): northeastern
- Zones 3 and 4 (red): southeastern
- Zones 5 and 6 (yellow): western
- Zones 7 and 8 (blue): northern
According to the plan, all buses in Bangkok will be repainted a particular color according to the zone they’re running in. Buses will also be renumbered according to what only God knows—the new number of each bus route will comprise, without any consideration to those who don’t know the foreign language, the first English alphabet of its new color (G for green, R for red, Y for yellow and B for blue), followed by a one- or two-digit number and the letter “E” if the bus takes an expressway. It is said that these new regulations were established as a result of a research conducted by the Smart Cities Research Center. Clearly, it is not smart enough.
The eight lucky bus numbers now on trial are (details below):
- 114, which is now G21 (Rangsit to Rama V Pier)
- 514, renamed G59E (Min Buri to Ratchadaphisek-Silom Road)
- 11, now R3 (Mega Bangna to MBK)
- 22, renumbered as R41 (Tok Road to Happyland)
- 189, now Y59 (Talingchan Junction to Krathum Baen)
- 509, renamed Y61 (Setthakit Village to Chatuchak Bangkok Bus Terminal-Bang Khae)
- 54, now B44 (Rama 9 Circle to Sutthisan)
- 73, now B45 (Ban Aoe Arthon to Buengkum)
After the one-month trial, these eight bus routes will be shifted back to their old tracks to await feedback from passengers on facebook.com/BusRerouteBKK. All comments and suggestions, and possibly violent reactions, will be taken into consideration for the further development of future bus routes. Can anyone explain to us what these people—who have been sucking up our taxes for years—are doing? Are they playing SimCity with transportation options? We rant, yes, but we have no choice but to wait—and pray.