PHUKET: The entire future of Phuket transport veered towards a sheer cliff today at a meeting that reviewed solutions for easing excessive traffic at the busy Bypass Road-Thepkasattri Road intersection.

Phuket people at the meeting consider flyovers an unsuitable solution, yet that's all the representatives from the Transport Department in Bangkok proposed. Three flyovers.

And, someone asked, what about the light rail project? What would happen to the flyovers if the light rail project gets the go-ahead?

Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha, just back from a week-long tour of Scandinavia, chaired today's meeting at Provincial Hall - and tomorrow meets with yet another construction firm, this time from Korea, that wants the huge contract for Phuket's long-discussed light rail ''solution.''

But have the two prospective projects been dovetailed? Is there a grand strategic plan for Phuket's critical transport from next year on, or the year after? This is, after all, the issue that everyone says is the most important for Phuket.

The sad answer: Apparently not.

Will short-term, cut-and-run thinking yet again triumph on Phuket? Does a new government in Bangkok have so many priority issues that Phuket's future is probably not included?

We hate to think.

The three alternative options presented for Phuket's busiest 50,000 vehicles-a-day intersection were all conventional flyover answers to traffic flow at the t-junction in Phuket City. Plan A, B and C.

But would the traffic gridlock simply be transferred along the roads to other intersections? The people from Bangkok couldn't answer that one.

Why no underpasses, when Phuket's holiday ambience would be badly spoiled by ugly flyovers? The people from Bangkok couldn't answer that one.

And where is the all-important light-rail, connecting Phuket International Airport to Phuket City and Phuket's south? The people from Bangkok couldn't answer that one.

Many Phuket visitors come from cities, so a coastal resort is what they hope to discover - not a holiday island with gridlock problems and flyovers and overpasses even uglier than the ones they are trying to escape.

The unspoken message from the Phuket tourism industry representatives at today's meeting was plain: Phuket sends huge amounts of income to Bangkok, and in return it gets short-term, conventional Bangkok solutions.

The question was also asked: why was the traffic survey that counted almost 50,000 vehicles using the intersection taken in the low season, when everyone on Phuket knows that traffic is much worse in the high season?

The people from Bangkok couldn't answer that one either.

As anticipated by the Phuket questioners, more meetings are to come.

Is there a strategic blueprint on someone's desk on Phuket or in Bangkok, a blueprint that solves all of Phuket's immediate transport needs, and looks at what should happen for the next 20 years?

Is there a comprehensive strategic plan that provides real solutions for Phuket's real requirements?

The people from Bangkok weren't asked those ones.