According to the Office of the Bangkok Election Commission, the city's official population is 5.7 million (although there are an estimated 8.28 million people living in the Greater Bangkok area), of whom about 4.2 million are eligible to vote in the upcoming governor's race.
According to Socialbakers, a provider of social-network statistics and analysis, Bangkok is the highest-ranked Thai city in terms of Facebook users.
Of the 18.33 million Facebook users in Thailand, 12.79 million are in Bangkok. This works out to more than one Facebook account for every resident of the city.
By early March, Bangkok will have a new governor. Bangkokians shared their thoughts with The Nation on what they would do if they were elected governor.
The Nation invited people to role-play: If they were Bangkok governor, what issue would they make their No 1 priority to address the problems of the city?
Traffic was the most pressing problem brought up by the people who engaged with us online.
They suggested that the Bangkok governor invest in public-transport services to make them available throughout the city to ease the traffic problem.
They said that to deal with the traffic, the governor needed to improve public transport, improve enforcement of traffic regulations and make bicycle lanes available throughout the city.
Here's what a selection of online people said they would do if they were governor:
@paulzuke said that if he were the governor he would order people to drive over the cars that park illegally on Bangkok streets.
@noth4loor would encourage Bangkok people to be disciplined when driving.
@jeerapong_nna would offer free air-conditioned buses for students in the rush hours to reduce the number of vehicles on the road at these times and to give children a better quality of life when travelling to and from school.
@aiamphong offered to move electricity cables underground to make the Bangkok landscape look nicer.
@GeekJuggler wanted to eliminate corruption from Bangkok.
@muaynarok would make the route of each public bus shorter and would order people to separate their garbage.
@HalleeySP agreed with @muaynarok on shortening the public bus routes and said to redesign the routes according to the Skytrain routes to serve people's needs.
@Nok77 would like to reconstruct the sidewalks throughout Bangkok.
Similarly, @Panyalee wants to reclaim the sidewalks from the street merchants and return them to pedestrians.
@misterTrin agreed with the need to manage the sidewalks throughout Bangkok for people to walk on and offered to put more lighting in the dangerous areas throughout the city.
Sakulsri Srirasacam would also improve the sidewalks and encourage people to separate their garbage.
Some people voiced their ideas via Facebook and Google Plus.
Weera Chearanaipanit said he would offer free Wi-Fi service throughout the city and sell single tickets for use on all kinds of public transport throughout Bangkok.
Varan Okul would also make one ticket available for all kinds of public transport. Praphit Faakham, Sornchai Nilthongkam and Pantipa Puengpan would make bicycle lanes available throughout the city.
These are just some of the issues people living in Bangkok would make their top priority of they were governor.
Latest stories in this category
- High in presentation, low in content
- Candidates are trying to impress the people, but..
- If you were governor, what would you change first?
- Pongsapat leads opinion poll by slight margin
We Recommend
- 3 Army officers face Rohingya trafficking probe
- Accused Isoc officers based at Chumphon; Sukampol..
- Pope Benedict XVI blesses social networks
- Hun Sen asks Abhisit not to drag Cambodia into..
Comments conditions
Users are solely responsible for their comments.We reserve the right to remove any comment and revoke posting rights for any reason withou prior notice.
Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2013/01/26/if-you-were-governor-what-would-you-change-first/
0 comments:
Post a Comment