Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Local transport within a town

Is there a need to create a local transport service (using light bus or private cars) to serve a town? Give your views in this survey.
Here are the survey results.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Tan,
It seems that you have turned your blog into a survey mechanism.

Anonymous said...

I like to give my view on the comment that MR TAN has "turned (his) blog into a survey mechanism".

I think MR TAN did the RIGHT and GOOD things. This is one of the way public can engage in policy thinking for the general good of Singapore. The reasons are:
[1] He gives us alternative perspectives
[2] He allows us to speak by voting
[3] He summarizes it for our information
[4] He does it for FREE and without COERCION

You know the government always said, if you criticize the policy then you should have the alternatives!

Thank you MR TAN. ..... FROM CASHEW NUTS

Anonymous said...

Light buses will be more efficient and will create less noise pollution. Noise is making Sp uncool. Very uncool..

Anonymous said...

It depends. How do you define "town"? Town as a physical structure, or town as a place (don't have to centralized) that provides the essential services and amenities.

Elimination of physical structure as the definition is easy I hope, so we move to the provisions of services and amenities. BUT the biggest problem is this is not how town is defined by the government. Why? the high rental makes relocation and elimination of many of these services and amenities happen very frequently and instantaneously, so we actually have no "town" to speak about. To give a real life example, the HDB foodcourt that is still 5 minute from my place is no more in existence. HDB does not define foodcourt as my requirement, they define it as a highest-rental fetching real estate. SO when the operator raise the rent because they bid the highest, all the stores that we used to like are gone, and one store that stays has raised the price of the RongTaoFu by 67%.

I think transportation is relevant provided it can bring you to the required service providers. On the contrary, by adding an easy transportation may boost the business, and may eventually kill off the "town" as it shall lead to sky high rental and the disappearance of the providers. So we are thrown the concept that the market shall adjust and shall reach its balanced point. This is true, the other food court is finally stablising and it took about 12 years to happen. If I live till 72, 30% of my life shall be deprived while I await for the market forces to work.

I only wish we can have more depth in our planning. HDB need to include or to prioritize the needs of the resident and the "town" first. The rest can then follow...

Ling SM

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