Zit Seng's Superwall

After so many years of courtesy campaign, it seems our Singapore 2010 YOG still needs to learn a thing or two. Have you seen the GIVE WAY signs on the roads and YOG buses? They scream “get out of my way”… much like the Mandatory Get Out Of My Way scheme for public buses. I know, we should all be proud to be the country selected to host the inaugural Youth Olympics Games. But can we not have some politeness? I wonder if the organizers have considered the kind of image they project?

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A few weeks ago, I happened to see a work crew making their rounds installing a bunch of new bus stop sign posts. You’ve probably seen many of these already at various bus stops around the island.  I was just wondering that what additional “features” these new sign posts had that required all the old sign posts to be changed. They don’t seem like much of a feature or functionality upgrade eh? They are new no doubt, more modern looking than the old sign posts, but well, is it worthwhile changing all the old sign posts?

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Here’s privileged parking for green motorists at this shopping centre on Orchard Road. If you have a hybrid, CNG, or electric  car, you get to use one of the two green lots next to the lift lobby. It’s even more privileged than the single lot reserved for families with baby strollers. Yeap, the family lot is actually further away. Incentive to go green?

Interestingly, while the car park, at least on this floor, was almost full, these two green lots remained unoccupied. It seems like not many green motorists visit this place.

I was on the bus coming down Clementi Road this morning and spotted an interesting sight: An all-white bicycle on the opposite side of the road, with some flowers placed on the ground in front of it. The bicycle is actually painted all white, not that its frame was white. Everything is totally white, the pedals, the chain, even the rubber tires that you’d expect to be black. It reminded me of an episode of CSI New York that I watched some time ago. It’s called a ghost bike.

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After complaining about cyclists, the next is about pedestrians. Actually, by and large they are quite okay. Pedestrians are slow moving. Apart from the occasional inconsiderate people who walk in a sufficiently large group to obstruct an entire footpath, it’s not as if we really need to come up with rules or guidelines about how pedestrians should use their footpaths. That’s assuming, of course, they stick to their footpaths. I think, the trouble begins when they start using the roads.

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I used to cycle around a lot, on the roads. That was over 10 years ago. I think I was a well-behaved cyclist, keeping to the side of the road, not getting in the way of motorized vehicles. Back then, the danger was with drivers not looking out for cyclists on the roads, not having awareness of their presence, not knowing how to react to their movements.

The last couple of months, the issue of cyclists has cropped up many times in our media. Should they be sharing footpaths with pedestrians, or should they share the roads with motorized vehicles?

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One of the worst things about driving in Singapore (and perhaps many other cities in the world) is getting stuck in traffic jams. It’ll be really nice if we could all somehow have detailed realtime traffic information about all the major roads in Singapore. The Traffic Watch announcements on radio doesn’t work out very well. You can’t get the information when you want it, because you have to depend on the deejay of your chosen radio station to read off the information. Checking on the Internet isn’t always very convenient, particularly when you are already on the road.

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That’s what I was thinking, ERP for pedestrian crossings, when I came across an article in the Straits Times a couple of days ago. Tap & Cross. Or perhaps Tap, Deduct, and Cross. Yet another interesting revenue generating mechanism for our LTA. Except that it won’t really work, of course, since pedestrians will just cross illegally without using a designated pedestrian crossing. Our pedestrians are often already preferring to jaywalk anyway (and there are times they really behave like the roads are meant for pedestrians).

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I have a suggestion to improve the Bus Service Standards formulated by our Public Transport Council: Include a benchmark that measures the number of times a bus is unable to pick up passengers from a bus stop when there are passengers wanting to board. Impose a fine based upon how badly a bus operator fails to meet the minimum standard.

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While waiting for my car the other day, I looked around the Kah Motor showroom and noticed the new fuel economy label stuck on the windscreens of all the cars. It’s the Mandatory Fuel Economy Labeling programme introduced by our National Environment Agency not too long ago, requiring all vehicles to undergo fuel economy testing, so that buyers can be better informed about the environmental impact of the vehicles they choose to drive.

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