Stan is well known on this site for a few postings referring to publications on the Khmer 440 site which earned him a write upon Crossing Cambodia. Considering he managed today (30 November, 2007) to make The Cambodia Daily 'Letter to the Editor' section, on a subject ,not only dear to our heart, but the topic of the previous posting, I feel compelled to retype it here:
Trams a Nice Idea but Buses Needed NowThis is very much in line with what Crossing Cambodia suggested a couple of days ago. Co-incidentally,the rest of the page was dedicated to an article on (the failures of) modernism. Is this similarly a case? Believing that the Messiahs will arrive once Phnom Penh has a tram and or Skytrain? Think again!
Now there's talk of a tram system for Phnom Penh. A short while ago it was a skytrain. Both are great ideas and essential for a modern city's future but both are akin to expecting a baby to walk or even run before it learns to crawl.
What a city needs is a bus system which would be easier, cheaper, simpler and faster to initiate than rail transit. In any case, it would take years to get trams or skytrains operational, whereas Phnom Penh needs public transit now.
Besides, buses are needed regardless: rail transit is not a substitute for a bus system, only a complement. The city is densifying very quickly along with accelerating growth in vehicle registrations.
People who applaud the new sky-scrapers being constructed in Phnom Penh don't seem to realize that bringing large numbers of people to those destinations will also bring traffic chaos if those workers and visitors don't have the option of getting there by mass transit. A bus system should be one of the city's highest priorities.
Stan Kahn, Phnom Penh
