Slashdot Mirror
Singapore To Stop Adding Cars to City From February 2018 (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Singapore, among the world's most expensive places to own a vehicle, will stop increasing the total number of cars on its roads next year. The government will cut the annual growth rate for cars and motorcycles to zero from 0.25 percent starting in February, the transport regulator said on Monday. "In view of land constraints and competing needs, there is limited scope for further expansion of the road network," the Land Transport Authority said in a statement on its website. Roads already account for 12 percent of the city-state's total land area, it said. Smaller than New York City, land in Singapore is a precious commodity and officials want to ensure the most productive use of the remaining space. Its infrastructure is among the world's most efficient and the government is investing $21 billion more on rail and bus transportation over the next five years, the regulator said.
And again everyone refuses to identify the root cause of the problem here, which is overpopulation.
Overpopulation is the root cause of all our environmental problems, only one of which is lack of space.
I was confused a bit on how this was managed. I decided to pull up the Wikipedia article on Singapore. Here is the exact quote from Wikipedia "Singapore is a unitary multiparty parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government." I'm sure there is someone out there with a higher intelligence that might be able to explain that. I need a aspirin for my headache after reading that twice.
Sent from my TARDIS
Chewing gum is banned in Singapore, I hope you are chewing that gum somewhere else. If not you could face a $700 file.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Lived that for four years, exceptional public transport (dare I say best in the world)... also the taxi fares are dirty cheap.
bit over-rated, one of those things about which they are not very strict about. Brought them in from Malaysia by mistake, the border police just smiled and let me pass...
Naw, dude. It's medical gum. Brought to you by Wrigley's.
It means that are capping the inventory of cars in the city. You can buy a new car, but it must replace an existing car.
Singapore's road system in entirely built out. All of the island is urbanized. And the effective capacity of a finite, fixed capacity road system is also finite and fixed. They have decided that they have now reached capacity.
Other urbanized islands do this. The number of vehicles in Avalon, Catalina Island is also fixed.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
People who have been there or who live there know this - the private car ownership thing is just not the same. It's a reasonably small city, and has excellent public transport or taxis. I've been several times, I've never been in a private car there.
Don't compare this to the UK or US - it's a completely different situation, and it would seem to make sense to me.
Big deal. I live in California and I cannot..
- Drink beer on the beach without getting fined.
- Publicly drink without getting fined.
- Hang out after hours without getting harassed by police.
I can do all three in Singapore.
They may have some crazy laws but California takes the cake.
You know, if you are going to copy paste the article anyways, better put the parts people will be asking questions about:
"These changes are not expected to significantly affect the supply of permits since the quota is determined largely by the number of vehicle deregistrations, the regulator said. The limit on vehicle growth rate will be reviewed again in 2020."
Hardly anyone will notice, since they only have 12~14 cars per 100 people in Singapore (different sources give slightly different numbers) and they have a world-class public transit system which makes car ownership more of a hassle than it's worth.
Here in Taipei it's similar, but less so... Overall car ownership in Taiwan is about twice that of Singapore, but that includes a ton of rural area, which Singapore lacks. In a big city with excellent public transit, there's really no need for a car. Hell, I even gave away my scooter a few years ago.
I'd say the bulk of the traffic in Taipei is: a) local "fleet" vehicles like taxis, buses, delivery vans; b) commuters to and from the surrounding 'burbs; c) scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, etc.. Commuters in the 'burbs tend to have a designated parking space at their apartment block, and another designated space at their employer in the city. Commuters who live in the city are far less likely to have a designated parking spot at home*, so they may spend half an hour looking for one when they get home from work. Major PITA.
OTOH, with public transit you can get all the way across town in under 45 minutes for $1~2 USD, or you can cut that time in half (depending on traffic) by taking a taxi for about $8~12 USD.
I do enjoy driving -- growing up in Iowa, I drove all the time, from age 14 -- but living in a city like Taipei, I'm quite happy NOT owning a car, or any motor vehicle, for that matter.
* Due to land availability, a higher percentage of residential housing in Taipei is "old construction" from the days when common folk didn't own cars. Newer construction (say, the last 30 years) tends to always include parking, but there's been more new construction in the open lands outside the city, and since the rent tends to be cheaper, a lot of people live there.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
True. Indeed, I'd say a lot of car owners here in Taipei already see it largely as a status symbol, but I didn't get into that because my post was already getting long. However, I think there's a generational change underway.
Thirty years ago, Taiwan was still riding the "Asian Tiger" economic high, and getting a car was a huge marker for success. But a lot has happened since then, such as the internet... but more importantly Taipei made some important investments in public transit and city planning. They now have one of the best subway systems in the world (also one of the most expensive), and with dedicated lanes and GPS tracking, the bus system has become even more convenient and reliable. For people who came of age in the last 10 or 15 years, I think the idea of car ownership has moved down a few rungs on the ladder of priorities.
I could be wrong of course, but even in the West, with the advent of self-driving cars and ride-sharing apps, the rate of car ownership is already starting to decline.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC