Infrastructure & Mobility Planning

18 March 2020

Each car in Singapore drives an average of 50km daily, which is comparable to distance driven by cars in countries much larger than us. As Singapore strikes to improve its public transport connectivity, the question on whether driving into the city centre should continue to be relatively affordable and convenient should be studied in detail.

Many cities have successfully removed and converted major highways into green and recreation urban spaces. Examples include Seoul’s restoration of the 11km long CheongGyeCheon modern stream, which was restored into a civic space after the elevated highway was demolished in 2003.[1]

Without doubt, it is definitely good for Singapore to progress towards a Car-Lite City. I think we are making good progress in reducing car ownership over the decades, as many young Singaporeans no longer view car ownership as a social status and are transiting to public transport for their daily commute.

However, it is important for urban and transport planners to understand that nudging of social behaviours takes time and should not be rushed. This is because if such social experiment failed, it might never be able to take off again in the future. For example, dockless bike-sharing and Personal Mobility Devices (PMD) complements the first-mile and last-mile connectivity of the public transport network.[2] However, the recent burst of the dockless bike-sharing bubble economy might means it will be more challenging for new vendors to enter the market and new users to adopt the technology. The public backlash and social sigma against the use of Personal Mobility Devices on footpath proves that it is generally difficult to bring back a social experiment once it failed, even if the outcome was expected to be good. In addition, it is important for urban and transport planner to note that car-lite measures might cause inconveniences to an aging population. Therefore, active mobility implementations should be balanced to ensure it does not caused disamenities.

Furthermore, transport planners have unlimited tendency to widen congested roads. While it is necessary to widen important corridors to ensure flow of logistics between the city, port and airport etc., the continuous widening of roads might also send the wrong signal that roads will always be widen whenever it is congested. This does not provide drivers a nudge or incentives to switch to alternative mode of transports.

it is important to use public transport ez-link transaction to analyse demand for public transport and first-mile and last-mile connectivity. However, it is important to note that while a public transport option is available, it might not be the most convenient option due to the number of transfer and distance travelled. Public transport provider should strike to provide better coverage. For instance, Singapore can definitely improve the public rail density and connectivity. New radial lines like Seletar Line (along Central Expressway and Jalan Kayu), Holland Line (along Holland Road and Bukit Batok Avenue 3), West Coast Line (along Jalan Bukit Merah and Ayer Rajah Expressway) and Paya Lebar Line can provide direct rail connection from new development areas (e.g. Tengah, Defu and PLAB) and areas not served by existing MRT lines (e.g. Seletar, Sengkang West, Whampoa, Sunset Way, Ulu Pandan, Tanglin Village and Bukit Merah Town Centre) to the City. New in-fill stations can also be added to existing lines (e.g. Lentor along North-South Line and Toh Tuck along East-West Line) to improve accessibility. Singapore also has a missed opportunity of building an Airport Express Line, which can be constructed in tandem with the Thomson – East Coast Line.

References 1. Cheonggyecheon. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from http://english.visitseoul.net/attractions/Cheonggyecheon-Stream_/35.
2. Zhou, Y., & Xu, Y. (2018, October). Dockless Bike-Sharing and Short Distance Travel Demand in a Car-Lite City. CLC Insights, 20.

[This is an essay submitted for "DEP5111 Planning Technologies" module on 18 March 2020 for AY2019/2020 Semester 2. "DEP5111 Planning Technologies" is offered by National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Architecture (DoA) Master of Urban Planning (MUP).]

Labels: ,

Infrastructure & Mobility Planning   © 文彬 2004~2024. All rights reserved.