Mishari (EN)Sep 23, 2024

So this is what it feels like to light the spark that unleashes a revolution.

It started about a year ago when a group of volunteers got together to survey roads in Bangkok in order to propose cycling friendly routes for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to enhance and upgrade. This group combined together to form Bangkok Urban Cycling Alliance an advocacy group to promote alternative forms of transport in Bangkok, because our car dependency significantly decreases quality of life. 🧵

Show threadMishari (EN)Sep 23, 2024
To give you some context, when a friend related that when he heard that the World Trade Center was under attack (we had a building with the same name in Bangkok), the first thing that came to his mind was that "traffic is going to be hell." For many of us, our dependency on cars is akin to those suffering from Stockholm syndrome, a paradoxical attachment to an instrument of utility, but also great harm. As Thais we love our cars, but implicitly hate everyone else in theirs.
Show threadMishari (EN)Sep 23, 2024

BUCA wrote and sent a letter to the deputy governor Sanon Wangsrangboon asking for safer streets and the resumption of car free events, giving the people of Bangkok the chance to re-imagine what we can do with our public spaces when we can reclaim them from cars.

This letter unleashed a series of events that led to the decision to close Bantadthong to traffic, a road dedicated to food, normally already overflowing with people.

Show threadMishari (EN)Sep 23, 2024

The amount of support this proposal received was overwhelming, with extremely smart, talented, capable and highly efficient people and typically languid organizations putting this event together in just a few weeks at a pace that would feel like a startup.

The results is the turning it into one of the most humbling human experiences for the people of Bangkok as people swarmed into the streets, using it as a canvas to design their city life.

Show threadMishari (EN)Sep 23, 2024
The energy sense of joy, awe, and freedom is one I've rarely seen. Normally being an unemotional person, I was teary eyed when I saw Bangkokians expressing themselves through paint on the road, children cycling around, the physically challenged navigating freely, and people enjoying live music, street furniture and other novel experiences; this is how life is to be lived, not through a confined space breathing in fumes, but moving and engaging with one's environment.
Show threadMishari (EN)

Now that we have established that Bangkokians, just like people over the world, love car free spaces, at BUCA we will continue to work hard to advocate for re-balancing our public spaces, giving people an alternative to spending their lives in soul crushing metal boxes.

#BUCA #CarfreeBKK2024 #doingtherightthing

More information and many more photos in this link:
https://www.travel-impact-newswire.com/2024/09/thousands-walk-eat-chill-as-bangkok-launches-car-free-street/

Thousands Walk, Eat, Chill as Bangkok launches Car-Free street

Bangkok -- Thousands of Bangkokians and tourists thronged the Bantadthong road in downtown Bangkok to Walk, Eat, Chill over two evenings of car-free relief...

Travel Impact Newswire
Sep 23, 2024 at 11:48pmWeb