Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Cars and its relevance in the city


On the SG paper I saw this news of having parts of the Singapore Civic Centre made car free............................................................. for a sunday morning. :) 
Screen grab from the Straits Time

There got your attention now. Well, this is really cause for being very happy about. It shows the SG approach, albeit, cautious but moving forward as a liveable and pro-cycling environment. 
I know some of my car driver friends are probably not happy, after all they have paid so much money for their car and now its one area cars are off limits. Bloody hell. 
Sadly esp in the city, the space for car and car parking are maxed out. It's not logical to keep things as it is and if you look around the major cities, everyone of them are putting in plans to make their cities car free or lite. Need another reason? Look at the space that a a car takes up.


Taken from http://www.fsraum.at/
I saw this very interesting posting some time back that explains in detail the space a car, a bus, train takes up and what it would mean.
http://www.planetizen.com/node/68574
Not to bore the folks who like pics... do read it to understand more why cars are going the way of the dodo. At least in the City that is.

So how could a car be relevant in SG? Yes I think so. Esp for a select group of people. I feel we could do with a softer compassionate approach to the handicapped, physically disabled and young families. One small but significant news  I read sometime back was that the London cab fleet would discontinued. It impacted quite a fair bit of the physically disabled.
I would not know if I didn't have friends who are those situation. It's really tough for them to move around. Poking around on the internet, it seems that London cab is still around. BTW, Do you know how much it cost for a london cab now? 

I hope we can have less "Ra Ra"/ fancy pants ideas, but simple implementable ones. Not cars per say but for example, could we have a Silver/family cab service (specific to elderly- going to see the doctors,  mummies with kids- to school, buying groceries,  families outing etc) that is more affordable(or subsidised). 
Or even a pro-family car COE certification class?? 
Crazy ideas perhaps but if you stop to think about the whole COE and ERP, it was designed to control car usage. Imagine if we can curb frivolous car usage, and focus where it matters. Example, for those who really cannot use the public transport. 
I know the concern of abusing/gaming the system but really please spare a thought for those who are having it tough. 
Ultimate Utopia dream perhaps but I hope for a country where there will be more compassion, heart and lesser of using $$ as the only lever on decisions. 

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