Monday, January 9, 2012

Singaporean and their cars

Singaporeans are obsessed with owning a personal vehicle, but this is something I find hard to appreciate. Cars are expensive to buy, drive, park and maintain. This excludes costs from accidents or car thief. Getting a driver's licence requires considerable effort too, costing around $2k minimum (rough impression). Most importantly, like every modern urban city, the surge in car-chasing has led to more frequent and heavier traffic jams eats up everyone's time and mind.

Singapore is really tiny. And with its acceptable public transport system, the private car obsession is incomprehensible. Much effort has been made to increase the costs of car ownerships, such as the right to own a car through Certificate of Entitlement (COE) to the right to use a road using electronic road price (ERP). Push factors. Singapore also plans to increase her subway network from the current 148.9km to 278 km by 2020. 


Nonetheless, I understand I reside in a part of Singapore that has great access to public transportation systems. I live within walking distance to 2 train stations, of which one is directly connected to 3 different subway lines. In addition, I live 15-30mins to town/CBD area by train. Even during peak hours, I need to wait no more than 3 trains to be able to board, even on the worse raining days. Not many Singaporeans have such luxuries, and I can only praise my parents for their excellent residential choice. 


I am still commonly advised to learn driving, especially at my age. I know its a skill I ought to. Unfortunately, things have not fallen into the situation where I just have to learn driving. Nonetheless, I reckon Singapore needs more people like me; those lazy to drive and willing to take the public commute. If not, cars and their usage will only cost more, and road speeds will only get slower. Without people like me, everyone will just suffer. 

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