Urban tales

It took us an hour and 20 minutes to travel 8.4 kilometers. On one spot we were immobile for 22 minutes, as Sathorn Road became a virtual parking lot–four lanes of cars, buses and trucks bumper to bumper, all with engines idling and drivers helplessly stuck.

That’s Bangkok at mid-afternoon on a Monday. Unlike in Manila, there were no roadworks or accidents or stalled cars to cause the snarl. That’s just the way it is on Bangkok streets, said our taxi driver, who showed his frustration by constantly fiddling with the channel select button on his radio.

All this despite smooth wide multi-lane roads, an efficient mass transport system called the BTS or Skytrain, and a more genteel and charming but still efficient river ferry. The Skytrain would have been our chosen mode of transport, if not for the heat and exhaustion that was the result of nearly five hours of walking, stimulating Bangkok’s retail economy. From my window at the Shangri-La Hotel, the Tak Sin Bridge is a gridlock from 7:30 in the morning.

Road gridlock is but one of metropolitan Bangkok’s problems, by this city of the River of Kings is by no means alone in this situation. In practically all major cities in the world, vehicular congestion is a problem–what with over 1.5 billion vehicles now occupying the world’s streets. And it’s not only road space that is the problem; there is the almost unsatiable need for fuel–fossil fuel like gasoline and diesel at the moment, until alternative fuels like biogas become more available and affordable–and the attendant pollution. There is now 40 percent more carbon monoxide in the air than a generation ago.

Daily, the world’s city dwellers increase by 180,000 people, according to a UN study. Most of the world’s 6.5 billion people live in cities. The nine million people of Bangkok generate over 9,000 tons of garbage a day.

The challenges, to be sure, are daunting–but not insurmountable. Time and again, the creativity of the human mind have more than met these challenges, and man’s imagination has come up with solutions both simple and complex, but workable.

Here in Bangkok for the conclusion of the first Holcim Foundation Global Awards for Sustainable Construction, this creativity and imagination–plus courage and nobility–have been on full display. Fifteen projects from 12 countries–one from the Philippines–demonstrate how problems of lack of space, poverty, decaying infrastructure, natural destruction, urban blight and other concerns of 21st century life can be confronted and addressed–in ways that are practical, ingenious, economically viable, environmentally responsible and aesthetically pleasing.

In future issues of STARweek, we will share these bold new visions–and the bold visionaries behind them–with you. In the meantime, we have a brand new airport to inspect…but that’s another story altogether.