I traveled to Thailand in 2024 and I was inspired by Bangkok’s transit network. It moves millions of people every day across a metropolitan region of 15+ million residents. It does so through a collection of overlapping systems that have accumulated over time rather than through a single, unified plan.
In that sense, Bangkok feels very familiar to NYC. One of the quiet but persistent challenges in the New York region is how fragmented our transit governance remains. The region is effectively divided into overlapping systems and agencies, each with its own maps, branding, fare structures, and planning priorities. There is no official, unified representation of the regional network, and even today it is difficult to find a map that meaningfully shows how these services relate to one another. The result is not just a rider experience problem, but a planning one: when systems are not visualized or managed as a coherent whole, it becomes harder to conceive of them as a single regional network in the first place.
Bangkok operates in a similarly fragmented way, with multiple rail systems developed by different agencies and operators over time. Riders there experience the seams just as clearly. The difference is not that Bangkok has solved integration, but that it has continued to expand its network at a relatively significant pace despite those divisions. In both cities, fragmentation shapes how people experience transit.
All photos taken by author.
A System Built by Accretion
Bangkok does not operate a single transit system. It operates many systems, layered over decades.
BTS Skytrain
The BTS is Bangkok’s most visible transit system and, in many ways, its backbone. It is a fully elevated rapid transit network running through the city’s densest commercial corridors. What makes BTS notable is not just that it is elevated, but that it is deeply integrated into surrounding development. Many stations connect directly into shopping centers, office buildings, and pedestrian bridges, creating a continuous above-street circulation system.
The elevated stations themselves often function as active places, with retail, food, and services located directly in mezzanines. This gives the system a level of everyday utility and liveliness that is often missing from older elevated rail systems elsewhere.
The elevated structures themselves are not ideal. They are large, visually dominant, and often block light at street level. But they are also clearly more modern than New York’s century-old steel elevateds. They carry some of the same physical presence as the Gowanus Viaduct, one of New York’s newer elevated subway segments (which is nearly 100 years old), or the JFK AirTrain. Modern concrete structures like these, including the BTS Skytrain, tend to transmit less noise to the street below, reflecting a tradeoff: accepting scale and visual impact in exchange for lower construction costs than a subway and somewhat quieter street level.
MRT (Metropolitan Rapid Transit)
The MRT forms the underground counterpart to BTS. It operates as a more traditional metro system, with larger stations, deeper tunnels, and modern safety features such as platform screen doors on newer lines.
Together, BTS and MRT form the urban core of Bangkok’s rail network, though they remain institutionally distinct. Notably, there are no free transfers between BTS and MRT, a reminder that these systems were built separately and still operate that way – much like the historical divide between the BMT, IRT, and IND in New York, or the way PATH continues to function as a parallel but distinct network today. When I visited, tap-to-pay with credit card was only available on the MRT, not the BTS.
Monorails and People Movers
Bangkok’s newer monorail lines – the Yellow and Pink Lines – along with the smaller Gold Line people mover, reinforce the same pattern seen across the city’s transit network. These systems are elevated and designed to serve specific corridors.
They are not interoperable with BTS, MRT, or SRT, and transfers can be awkward. But they exist because the city chose to add capacity where it could. The result is a network that is fragmented, but continually expanding – an approach that prioritizes building over waiting for perfect integration.
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
Bangkok’s BRT is limited in extent, but notable in its design. Stations are built with level boarding and a dedicated right of way, giving the service a permanence that most bus routes lack. Like the elevated rail lines, it works best along wide corridors. There are corridors in the NYC region where similar center running bus lanes could work with enough creativity and political will.
Conventional Bus Networks
Bangkok also operates an extensive bus system. While often slow due to intense traffic congestion, buses remain essential for coverage and accessibility, particularly in outer districts. There are also more informal transit options.
River and Canal Ferries
Bangkok’s waterways remain active components of its transportation network. Ferries along the Chao Phraya River and canal services function as parallel corridors to the road network, particularly in areas where congestion is severe. These services are part of daily life, often connecting directly to lively waterfront walkways and commercial areas, and remain one of the most pleasant and efficient ways to move through the region.
SRT Suburban Rail
Thailand’s State Railway (SRT) has in recent years focused heavily on expanding suburban rail service in the Bangkok region. These new lines – many of them elevated – are designed to function more like regional commuter rail than traditional intercity service. They share infrastructure with some long-distance trains and connect directly into a new central terminal, allowing suburban and intercity services to operate along the same modernized corridors.
What stands out is the scale of these investments. Much of the new infrastructure includes additional tracks and structural capacity beyond what is currently needed. Platforms are built long enough to accommodate significantly longer trains, reflecting an intentional decision to plan for future growth rather than optimize narrowly for present demand. It recalls for me the original ambition behind Grand Central Terminal, which was built in 1913 with far more track and platform capacity than was immediately necessary, in anticipation of future growth.
SRT Intercity Rail
At the same time, Thailand’s intercity rail network still operates in a hybrid condition. While many long-distance services have shifted to the new Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal and use upgraded elevated approaches, others continue to run on older, at-grade alignments and serve legacy stations such as Hua Lamphong.
This coexistence of old and new infrastructure is emblematic of Bangkok’s broader approach: expansion without full replacement. Rather than waiting for a complete system overhaul, the city has layered new capacity on top of existing rail lines, allowing service to evolve gradually while maintaining continuity.
Bonus: Take an intercity train to the Maeklong Railway Market, where vendors clear their stalls as the train rolls through. The trip even includes a short ferry crossing to reach the next train!
Airport Rail Link
The Airport Rail Link connects Suvarnabhumi Airport to the city and interfaces with the broader rail network. It is not treated as a novelty or a people-mover, but as a legitimate piece of regional rail infrastructure.
A Familiar Structure for New Yorkers
New York operates in a remarkably similar way, across a patchwork of agencies and services. None are fully integrated. None are perfectly coordinated. And yet together they move one of the largest metropolitan populations in the world.
One of the clearest lessons from Bangkok is the intentional use of elevated rail.
What is also striking is how much activity occurs within the elevated stations themselves. Retail, food, and services are common in mezzanine levels, making stations feel like extensions of the surrounding city rather than purely utilitarian spaces. Compared to New York’s often bare-bones elevated stations – many of which are more than a century old – the difference is stark.
Along the Red Line suburban rail corridors in particular, the elevated infrastructure reflects a long-term view of growth rather than a narrow focus on current ridership. Portions of the corridor include four-track sections on two or more levels, allowing commuter services and longer-distance trains to operate independently as demand increases. In other segments, the right-of-way and supporting structures are built wide enough to accommodate additional tracks or expanded service in the future.
Stations, too, are designed with this logic in mind. Platforms are sized for longer trains, and station footprints anticipate higher passenger volumes than currently exist. Rather than retrofitting later, the system has been designed to absorb growth as it occurs. Of course, this is not true of every mode in Bangkok’s network. Smaller, specialized systems such as the monorails and people movers are far more constrained and difficult to retrofit or integrate into a larger regional network, much like New York’s JFK AirTrain, which was never designed to evolve beyond its original, limited purpose.
Potential Lessons for Region NYC
New elevated rail is not appropriate everywhere in the NYC region, of course, but it can make sense in airport corridors and other areas with limited nearby residential development.
At Newark, the question should not simply be how to rebuild the AirTrain, but whether the current model makes sense. If the region is already investing in new infrastructure, it would be worth considering more direct rail access to the airport, either by extending PATH or by extending a rethought AirTrain directly to Newark Penn Station and designing it with provisions for future heavy rail integration. Today, NJ Transit buses from Newark Penn are often faster and cheaper than transferring to the AirTrain.
At LaGuardia, the lack of rail access remains a sore point, and an elevated connection from Astoria has long made structural sense. However, if large, privately financed projects such as the casino at Willets Point move forward, it would be reasonable for those developers to help fund airport-area connections that would directly benefit their sites and help manage the travel demand they generate to Willets Point, whether through an AirTrain-style rail link or, at minimum, dedicated shuttle bus service. A similar logic could apply near JFK, where the expansion of Resorts World would benefit from improved airport-area connections if a significant share of visitors are expected to arrive via the airport.
Absent meaningful private participation, public investment should, of course, be directed toward the most effective long-term transit solutions, whether that means a more direct rail connection to LaGuardia or other improvements that better integrate airport access into the regional network. The hope is that any future airport rail connection avoids repeating the mistakes at JFK, where high fares and awkward transfers have turned what should be a regional link into a premium service. Today, many riders take free bus transfers to reach the AirTrain, or even park off-airport and walk to AirTrain stations, simply to avoid paying the surcharge from subway or rail. The result is a system that technically provides access but, in practice, discourages seamless transit use. Bangkok’s newer elevated lines show the value of building infrastructure that can evolve over time, rather than locking in single-purpose systems from the start.
Conclusion: Not a Model, but a Useful Mirror
Bangkok is not a model to be copied wholesale. In many ways, its transit network reflects short-term decision-making just as much as long-term planning. The very fact that so many systems operate independently – with limited integration and awkward transfers – underscores how incremental and at times fragmented its growth has been. Some of its decisions were clearly short-sighted. Others, however, show a willingness to build at scale, to reserve space for future growth, and to accept imperfect solutions in order to move forward. Elevated rail and corridors designed with expansion in mind reflect an understanding that cities evolve faster than any single plan can anticipate.
Beyond the scope of this article, but impossible to ignore, are the underlying reasons New York struggles to deliver infrastructure at comparable scale or speed. Even after adjusting for wages, including strong labor union protections, materials costs, and inflation, construction costs in the New York region remain among the highest in the world. Other global cities with strong unions and high labor standards still build major transit projects for far less. The binding constraints in New York are largely institutional: fragmented governance across agencies, overlapping jurisdictions, risk-averse procurement, and a legal environment shaped by common-law traditions that make large infrastructure projects especially vulnerable to litigation at every stage. In a highly individualistic and litigious political culture, almost any project can be delayed, reshaped, or stopped by a small number of motivated actors. The lack of a strong, centralized regional planning function only compounds these challenges, with agencies often working at cross purposes, sometimes even within the same organization. In many ways, this is the institutional overcorrection to the Robert Moses era: a system designed to prevent unilateral power now finds it extraordinarily difficult to build anything at metropolitan scale.
If construction costs were more manageable, it would be entirely reasonable to imagine a true regional rail connection to JFK, integrated into the broader network rather than isolated at the airport boundary. In that world, airport service would not end at Jamaica, but continue through Lower Manhattan via a new lower-level rail connection at Fulton Center, with through-running service branching west to Hoboken Terminal and north to Penn Station and Grand Central, and potentially even south to Staten Island. That level of ambition feels unrealistic under current conditions, but it highlights how many of New York’s limits are institutional rather than physical.
Bonus: Chiang Mai Station
Bonus: Bus in Phuket!
In conclusion, Thailand’s transit systems offer a useful reminder of what it looks like when a country continues to build, adapt, and layer infrastructure over time. The planning lessons are real, but they only capture part of the story. Of course, my visit was not just about transportation infrastructure. Bangkok and Thailand more broadly are extraordinary places to explore in their own right, and we had a great time experiencing them.
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