Dear CMM Editor,
This now-fashionable area has developed
over recent years from a rural backwater in to Chiang Mai's premier street for
the location of upmarket shops, restaurants, coffee shops, shopping centres and
hotels. It attracts masses of tourists. However, the street itself has
unfortunately not yet been upgraded to match!
From the Maya end all the way to the CMU
art centre other end of Nimmer. Road, there is not yet even a single safe
crossing point, with traffic lights.
True, a pedestrian crossing is now painted
on to the road surface about half way along it, outside Tescos. But because no
traffic lights are situated there, this does nothing at all to stop the traffic
flow, which is constant. Pedestrians have to risk injury or death by darting
quickly between rare gaps in the traffic, to cross any point of this always-busy
road.
The many food stalls, motorbikes and even
cars parked right on Nimman’s sidewalks (meant for pedestrians) block them,
forcing pedestrians to go in to the road itself to be able to get along - which,
of course, is very dangerous.
The authorities need to prosecute those
food stalls and vehicles blocking the sidewalk of Chiang Mai's main tourist
street. They need to install a couple of pedestrian bridges or sets of traffic
lights in the middle part of this road. They also need to enforce the
regulations by having traffic policemen monitor that vehicles do actually stop
at the red lights and that motorbike riders keep off the sidewalks.
Once they've done all that, then they can
turn their attention to removing the mid-sidewalk advertising signs, trees, lamp
posts, hanging electricity wires and other blocking ''street furniture'' and to
re-paving the very uneven sidewalk surfaces. All these things would bring the
Nimman. Road up to international standards, and be safer and less off-putting
for visiting pedestrians.
The businesses in that area reap good
profits from visitors, so they could be asked to chip in to help cover the costs
of upgrading Nimman. Road.
Yours,
Jill Denby.
