Green light for bypass road widening

PHUKET CITY: Work to widen Chalermprakiat Ror IX Rd (the bypass road) to four lanes and, along one section, to six lanes, is due to begin on May 7. The 111-million-baht project, which will be paid for by the central government, will run from just south of the Dara Samut School intersection (known to many people as the Thainaan intersection) to the Baan Bang Ku intersection and north to the area of the Boat Lagoon. It is scheduled for completion on September 28, 2005, less than 17 months from the start date. Wanchai Wattanasiri, Chief of the Phuket Provincial Highways Office, told the Gazette that the stretch between the Baan Bang Ku and Baan Samkong (Tesco) intersections will be widened to four lanes while the southern part will have six lanes. Compulsory purchases have already been made of a number of parcels of land fronting directly onto the bypass road, and the main contractor, Chiang Rai Harn Charoen Enterprise Ltd (CRHC), has been appointed. Little indication has been given as to what will happen to traffic when it hits the southern end of the expansion. K. Wanchai told the Gazette that the three southbound lanes will filter into one lane within 100 meters of the Dara Samut School intersection. The last major road-building project, the road from Phuket City to the Sarasin Bridge, ran way over budget and far beyond its contracted completion date. Addressing concerns about the possibility of similar problems with the bypass road contract, K. Wanchai said that if CRHC fails on either count, it will be blacklisted, barring it from all future government projects.