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Phnom Penh has a horrendous traffic problem. There isn’t enough space on the streets for all the vehicles, and this year they are registering an additional 850 vehicles every day. One of the reasons there is no space in the streets is because the streets are used for everything else. What you used to do on your farm land in the provinces, you now do on the street in front of your house.
It is the norm for construction workers in Cambodia to live on the construction site where they work. Many are workers from provinces who have left family–and homes–behind to come for off-season work in the big city. They have no place to live in Phnom Penh so they live where they work. Here a mother with a 4- or 5-year old son sits on a site where she and her husband work while her toddler son explores the sand piles and paving bricks that will become the building’s courtyard.
Not all the motorcycle loads are as dramatic and extreme as some of the ones pictured here. It seems more and more companies are devising some type of carrier for deliveries, especially as now we have started food delivery services. This carrier looks homemade and it’s definitely bigger than most, but it looks like a more reasonable way to transport things–although notice the straps on the box, ready to tie down the really big and unwieldy loads when necessary.
Phnom Penh has Starbucks now, but for most of the country, when you’re really hot and thirsty….
The traffic in Phnom Penh is beginning to rival that of the infamous bad-traffic cities like Bangkok. There are multiple problems behind the traffic mess. One is the sheer number of vehicles that increases significantly every year. There is no place to park or drive the vehicles we have, but last year more than 200 vehicles were registered per day on average. So far in the first six weeks of this year, the average is 876 per day. Another reason is government incompetence. Everyone knows there is a huge problem but even the most simple remedies, ones that don’t even entail spending any money, are ignored. The above article is from a new newspaper, Capital Cambodia. An article in the past week in another paper lists several steps that the government is finally going to initiate. There is little expectation of change because of the way the government functions–or doesn’t function.
