Thursday, August 21, 2014

It's illegal to cycle at Bedok Town Centre

I saw this today and it said "Beware if you cycle at Bedok Town Centre" and it came from the East Coast Town Council Facebook page.  Oh wow, they are now catching and issuing summons to cyclists for illegal cycling at the Town Centre. 190 comments since 22nd Aug and rising.
More here too
Before jumping into conclusion... I posted on their page requesting more information. Let's see why they chose this drastic action.
Reply from East Coast Town Council on their page:
Added Francis Chu comments
"Desmond, Bing ChengDennis LH Cheong and a few of us were there a few months back to observe the crowded town centre and the cyclists riding passed. I took some video and we all saw cyclist and pedestrian can be mixed safely. Majority of cyclists slows down when there are people in front of them, a few choose to go side way where there is more room for overtaking. 
The photos post by East Coast Town Council shows there were hardly anyone in the town centre. Is the ban 24/7? It confuses people if they have to dismount and push when the town centre is empty and perfectly safe to cycle through. 
I feel what we really want to target is those very few dangerous cyclists. I'd suggest to catch the few "black sheep" when the crowd is there, and do punish them heavily and make it very transparent that the authority will not tolerate such anti-social behavior. But asking all cyclist (mostly very considerate) to dismount and push 24/7 is neither practical nor reasonable. 
It feels like punishing the good sheep but still doing nothing to the black sheep. If such extreme measure is justifiable by one, or few serious accidents, we should also ban driving from all Singapore roads, since a lot more serious accidents happened on the roads a lot more often. 
I hope the town council will be able to keep a balanced approach and come up with a pragmatic and effective solution to improve safety between pedestrian and cyclist in the town centre."

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