Cambodia Expats Online: Forum | News | Information | Blog

Phnom Penh Plans to Clear Shops From Streets, Sidewalks

"City Hall’s latest plan to solve its traffic and pedestrian woes involves forcibly removing food carts, shake shacks, petrol stands and other small businesses operating on city streets and sidewalks.

In a directive signed by Phnom Penh’s new municipal governor Khuong Sreng on Tuesday, city police will take action against vendors, construction projects or parking that encroaches on the city’s roads.

“If they insist on running their business on the sidewalk even after negotiation, we will confiscate their business to either a district police station or municipal police station,” City Hall spokesman Met Measpheakdey said.

Since changing the vast sales network on the city’s sidewalks will take time, the authorities are implementing a two-week notification period. After that, sidewalk businesses will be expected to take up only one-third of the sidewalk, leaving the remaining space for pedestrians.

After the grace period, police will enforce the rules, according to the directive.

Even the one-third requirement is only temporary, Mr. Measpheakdey said, as the entire sidewalk will eventually be off limits to vendors, parked cars and motorbikes. No timeline was set for when sidewalks must be vendor-free, he added.

Officials have chosen 11 main streets to implement the new policy first, including Monivong, Russian Federation, Kampuchea Krom, Mao Tse Tung, Sihanouk, Nehru, Norodom, Monireth, Charles De Gaulle and Sisowath boulevards, Tep Phon Road and streets 271 and 70.
...
Contnue reading .

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/phno ... ks-133445/

well it would be nice wouldn't it, but where are these people, cars and carts expected to go?
Maybe they could turn the whole of the esplanade into a giant market and paid parking.

frank lee bent wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:31 am well it would be nice wouldn't it, but where are these people, cars and carts expected to go?
Maybe they could turn the whole of the esplanade into a giant market and paid parking.

If they could​ clear the worst of it off the main roads, and also severley restrict the tuk tuks, you'd have gone a long way in improvng the city and its traffic.

Good move. More room for the rich to park the Range Rover.

willyhilly wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:58 am Good move. More room for the rich to park the Range Rover.

Yeah, I'm sure the cops will be successful ticketing/removing those glossy SUVs along Sihanouk. Both sides were impassable when I visited in June, as it's always been.

It's worse now as they've added a traffic light. Combined with the triple-parked cars outside of ANZ, it's a constant bottleneck. Again, they're trying to cure hemorrhaging with a band-aid. The streets here are already narrow and there's nothing they can do to widen the existing ones. The side walks are narrow, mostly slanted and barely usable in the first place, so clearing them won't help much. Starting with parking would be best. Look around Central Market, it's a total fiasco every single day simply because of badly parked cars and double/triple parking. Monivong and many other streets are the same when guys stop to buy soup. Increase the tax (import and yearly) on large vehicles and decrease it on everything else.

Hot air.

There will be a week of action, and when the masses knee-jerk, they will back down.

Should never even try stuff like this ahead of an election, do it immediately after.

Wheel clamps and big fines, cops get 85%. 271 is a damn nightmare after 4pm and after 6, take an alternate route.

The main way to solve the traffic would be to stop all those idiots in SUVs who just decide to stop anywhere park up in the middle of the street usually diagonally outside bars and restaurants then need a 33 point turn with a little man with a whistle telling them how to reverse out of it.

Stage two would to make everyone do a european standard driving test. All those that fail get their cars crunched and made to travel by bicycle or foot for a year.

it was much nicer when i first visited in 2007 in many ways, pretty dusty though.
i bet the population has tripled since then.

frank lee bent wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2017 1:12 pm it was much nicer when i first visited in 2007 in many ways, pretty dusty though.
i bet the population has tripled since then.

Unfortunately the IQ level hasn't