Tan Kin Lian's Blog: North South Expressway

Sunday, January 23, 2011

North South Expressway

The Government is spending $7 to $8 billion on the North South Expressway. This is a lot of money. The money is better spent to improve the feeder services, e.g. to bring commuters from their homes to the MRT station or bus terminal with a shorter waiting and journey time and capping the cost at the current level.

If the feeder service is improved, like in Hong Kong, many people will prefer to take public transport to work, rather than drive their cars. If 30% in the current cars are taken off the road, there will be no need to expand the road network and expressway for the next 10 years or more. It will be a better solution over the long term, and is environmentally sustainable.

Tan Kin Lain

8 comments:

ron said...: It is vested interest to continue building roads.
The cost justifies the returns, and it is not just hypothetical.

Note the barrage of car advertisements in newspapers.. front page too!

The expected earnings from future COE, ERP , additional fees, taxes is huge! and it will pay for the construction many times over.
The contsruction companies too will earn money and the associated industries too.. foreign manual labour, foreign site supervisors.

The knockdown effect ripples through the economy.. public spending that helps a slowing export.

The economics of Singapore is engineered by design not by chance.
It is intentional.

And they know their ground very well. The aspiration of the young to own cars is further teased by car reviews in the newspapers and Formula 1 racing.

It is foolish to think that cars in Singapore will reduce in numbers.; January 23, 2011 9:39 PM
JasonX said...: I think reducing the number of cars on the road is definitely required. Its way too congested. Even if government increases the number of Expressway / roads available, our parking space is still limited. Cars still get stuck frequently in the hunt for a parking lot.; January 24, 2011 1:18 AM
Kenny said...: Need to look at the root cause of the problem.

We have an overpopulation problem that is causing alot of social problems including traffic jams. It is better to cap the current population at its level rather than spending more on infrastructure.

$7 to $8 billion is probably just the cost of building. What about other cost like traffic jams, more foreign workers in Singapore, relocation of business and households etc etc....; January 24, 2011 10:36 AM
ron said...: Some straight line estimations:

Population of vehicles to date:
925,500 ( ST 16 Jan2010 )

Average COE price over last 4 years
(most cars are less than 4 years old)
$20,000

925,500 x 20,000
= $18,510,000,000

Lets not count the ERP charges.
Lets not count the Road Tax
Lets not count the parking fees
Lets not count the petrol tax
Lets not count ARF etc
Lets not count insurance
Lets not count radio licence
Lets not count incidental fines
Lets not count workshop repairs

What then is 8 billion to build an expressway? ( inclusive of compensation to acquire land )

The economic effect is humongous.

I say: DENY the taxes
take public transport and buy shares of SMRT & Delgro.. the money spent will give you far better returns.; January 24, 2011 10:59 AM
symmetrix said...: Disagree with the building of NSE. Granted that it increases govt profits, but how does that improve quality of life for the Average Joe? We have almost a million vehicles on the road. How many more do we want or need?

Better to use the money to build LRT network to complement MRT. This is better than trying to improve bus services, as LRT is jam-free. The goal should be to have a LRT station within a 10-min walk from anywhere in singapore. Then many motorists will convert to using public transport.; January 24, 2011 4:20 PM
Unknown said...: Several years ago, I hardly see westerners driving on our roads, drivers were mainly locals. But nowadays, I see quite a lot of westerners driving on our roads. I have nothing against them - this is just my observation.; January 24, 2011 5:20 PM
Lye Khuen Way said...: Like one comment above, so what if the Expressways & other Roads get expanded ? Do we have enough car-parks at the end of your journeys in Singapore ? The ways "problems" are being tackled in Singapore nowadays, I get the feeling that many in authority/power need to be re-trained/ up-skilled ! No ?; January 24, 2011 7:19 PM
Solomon said...: This could be for the future. Building NS expressway probably is just another part of the plan to move part of the city underground. Once the underground infrastructure is ready, you can move factories, transport depot, military installations, power plants,shopping centre, reservoirs etc underground to free up space above ground for residential and recreation. The only problem is cost, is it worth it?; January 25, 2011 9:24 AM