| |
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM IN BHUTAN
The country's primary road is the East-West highway, known locally as the Lateral Road, which was constructed starting in 1962. The road starts in Phuentsholing on the SW Indian border and terminates in Trashigang in the Far East, with spurs to other main centres such as Paro, Thimphu, and Punakha. The Lateral Road is built to a standard width of only 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) yet must support traffic in both directions (the cost of cutting a wider road through the mountainous Middle Himalayas is prohibitive at this time). Safety barriers, road markings, and signage are sparse.
Traffic proceeds at a slow speed, typically around 15 km/h, to minimize head-on collisions. Road accidents still occur frequently and, because of the steep mountainous topography, are typically horrific. The portion connecting Paro Airport to Thimphu is slated to be expanded to a two lane expressway, which should alleviate some of the discomfort felt by foreign tourists prone to acrophobia (fear of heights).
The Lateral Road traverses are a number of high passes, including Tremo La and Do Chu La. The highest pass on the road is at Trumshing La in central Bhutan at an altitude of over 3800 m.
Roads in western Bhutan are maintained under contract by DANTAK, an Indian Army engineering division, and in the rest of the country by the Department of Roads.
Because much of the geology is unstable, there are frequent slips and landslides, which are aggravated by both summer monsoon and winter snowstorm and frost heave conditions. Teams of Indian laborers are housed at work camps in the mountain passes to be dispatched to clear the roads in the event of road blockage. The conditions in the work camps are poor, with the workers reduced to breaking rock into gravel on a piece-rate basis when not clearing the roads. An international aid project is under way to stabilize the worst sections of the road. A major Japanese aid project seeks to replace most of the narrow one-way bridges with two-way girder spans capable of carrying heavier traffic.
Most freight is moved on eight-ton 300 hp (225 kW) Tata trucks, which are often overloaded. There is a network of passenger buses, and the most common vehicle in Government and private use is the four wheel drive pickup. A national driver licensing system includes a driving test, but this is not rigorous. Government drivers are trained at the Samthang Vocational Training Institute driving school (formerly the National Driving Training Institute) or they learn on the job as 'handy boys'.
The roads do not have stoplights - a stoplight installed in Thimphu has been dismantled, and there are recent reports of plans to reinstate it.
Airports: The single runway at Paro Airport is located in a steep-sided valley with restricted VFR approaches. During the monsoon season, flights are often delayed by cloud cover. Druk Air is the national carrier, connecting Paro to Bangkok (Thailand), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kolkatta, and Delhi (India), and Kathmandu (Nepal). The airline replaced its two aging BAe 146 four-engined jets in 2004 with faster and more capacious Airbus A319-100 aircraft.
|
|
|
