Abstract
This article discusses the government’s road improvement policy in the era of the People’s Party government. Because of the rebellion of H. R. H. Prince Boworadet, the government keenly recognized the importance of road improvement for national security. At the same time, James M. Andrews, an American scholar who conducted Thailand’s rural economic survey, recommended road improvement from the point of economic development. The government, therefore, laid out an ambitious road construction program that aimed to complete a 15,000 kilometer road network within 18 years. This was the first nationwide road construction program in Thailand.
Though the government intended to construct one nationwide road network within Thai territory, there were still many provinces where neither railway nor road had reached. The first five-year program, therefore, aimed to construct feeder roads for railways that would serve these provinces. Thereafter, the government established many provincial highways all over the territory to ease the dissatisfaction of assembly men and inhabitants whose province was not benefited by the first five-year program. However, as the world situation worsened, the government increased the construction of military roads, which had not been included in the first program, while leaving most provincial highways unimproved.
The People’s Party government had to institute road policy from both a macro-and micropoint of view. It had to materialize the macro-intention of completing a nationwide road network for national security on the one hand, but it also had to respond to micro-demands for local roads in every area. Therefore, it pretended to respond to micro-requests by establishing the first five-year program and the provincial highway program. This apparent egalitarianism
was the most peculiar phenomenon of road improvement during the era of the People’s Party government.
