The subway crashed on Monday morning. Nobody was killed, but 200 people were injured.

What is so unbelievable to me about his is that the Skytrain has operated without a hitch for five years, and the Subway has already had a minor, and now a major accident, and it hasn’t even been six months yet.

The two systems are run completely independently from each other. Why isn’t the expertise of BTS, which operates the Skytrain, used to operate the subway too, rather than the new BMCL? After letting this mess come about, the government decided that both systems should be under the same organization, and tried to force the investors to sell to the government. The government actually threatened to build another subway parallel to the existing one if BMCL wouldn’t sell!

All that had settled down, and things seemed to be looking up for the subway, which just lowered its fares in a bid to increase its passengers. But who’s going to wan to ride it now? Between the vested political interests that have totally halted expansion of the system, and incompetence in operating what amazingly has been built, this may be the death knell for mass transit in Bangkok.

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