Pressure is piling on the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to make good on its promise to provide lifts for disabled commuters at all skytrain stations or risk facing legal action for its failure to do so.
Disabled commuters have banded together to demand that City Hall honour its obligation to construct lifts at BTS stations.
Last week, 98 disabled people fed up with the delay in installing the lifts petitioned the Civil Court to pressure the BMA into taking immediate action.
In their petition, commuters alleged that City Hall has consistently ignored them and deprived them of their right to travel.
They are also looking to sue City Hall for damages, demanding the city pay them millions of baht in compensation because city officials have failed to finish installing lifts at 23 skytrain stations.
The group backed up their complaint with a 2015 Supreme Administrative Court ruling which ordered City Hall to finish installing the lifts within a year of the ruling being handed down, or by Jan 21 last year.
Two years have passed since the ruling was made and lifts are still missing from many skytrain stations.
The compensation they are demanding is 361,000 baht per person, according to their petition.
The group claims that City Hall has no choice but follow the court ruling.
"If we win the case, we will use the money to build more user-friendly public infrastructure for disabled people," said Thirayut Sukhonthawit, chairman of the Transport For All advocacy group.
He said the need to accommodate disabled people was all the more pertinent given the increasing amount of mega-infrastructures being added to the capital. Mr Thirayut led the 98 people in wheelchairs on a march from the Lat Phrao subway station to the Civil Court on Ratchadaphisek Road on Jan 20 where they filed the petition pushing City Hall to speed up installing the lifts.
If City Hall loses the case, there will be more bills it will have to settle on top of the 350 million baht it has committed to pay the construction company hired to install the lifts.
Under the contract, construction should have been completed by Aug 29 last year, said deputy Bangkok governor Pol Maj Gen deputy Bangkok governor Amnuay Nimmano, admitting several problems have hindered the work.
One problem is money. City Hall's Traffic and Transport Department chief Suthon Anakun said earlier the company had encountered some liquidity problems.
According to City Hall, the firm also found it physically difficult to add lifts to some stations as they are not designed to support new facilities. The digging work has also proved difficult as contractors have had to avoid, or remove, existing public utilities underground to make way for the lifts.
"They are also given only four hours a day to build lifts at the stations," Pol Maj Gen Amnuay said, adding that vendors around some stations complained their businesses were being affected by the construction.
Despite the problems, City Hall officials remain optimistic about the lift project. In response to the latest demand by the group of disabled persons, Mr Suthon promised the new lifts should be installed at most stations by the end of the year.
The biggest obstacle to putting up the lifts was encountered at Taksin Station near the Taksin Bridge. The station must be re-designed to accommodate double tracks which could delay lift construction.
The physical construction limitations will be raised by City Hall as grounds for defending itself in court to avoid paying the compensation.
Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said the lifts will also serve elderly people as the country is approaching an ageing society.
The Labour Ministry says the country has a rapidly growing elderly workforce. It predicted that in four years, the proportion of old people in Thailand's 64 million population is expected to rise to 14.5%.
"Within 2017, agencies under the ministry must improve the public facilities for elderly people and persons with disabilities," said Mr Arkhom.
In fact, elderly and disabled-friendly facilities have been completed or are being built at most mass-transit systems including the subways, electric trains and airports, according to transport officials.
Ramps at toilets at airports and subway stations are now a common sight and notice boards at airports are shown in Braille.