I've been wanting to do this post for the longest time, but never got around to doing this. Now that I've some time to rant, here I am again.
The Singapore government is advocating public transport for all in Singapore (presumably except for those who can afford to drive cars and pay the exorbitant ERP tolls and parking fees). Public transport is good, as it will help save the world from global warming than if everyone gets his/her own car and burns up petrol.
Thing is, while our MRT system is reliable (comes on time most of the time), it is too crowded for comfort. I remember some time ago when someone was lamenting about paying the MRT fare and having reasonable expectations to have a seat occasionally, but this kind of comment is no longer heard of nowadays.
Don't get yourself fooled, not that we get to sit now more often now, but it's so bad now that if you have a proper place to stand without someone stepping on your toes, you should count yourself lucky. Oh, what am I talking about? I should have said, if you can manage to get on the train the first time round, you should count yourself lucky!
This was the scene on 12-03-08 at City Hall MRT that triggered this post. I came down from Ang Mo Kio MRT from my workplace to get to Kallang, and then after waiting for 1 min, I turned my head to look at the waiting time, expecting the train to come in any moment. The signboard read: Pasir Ris...7 mins.
7mins! If it were at 12 midnight, maybe an acceptable waiting time (even then... ah never mind.) But it was 7pm, mind you, rush hour for working folks and people waiting to get home, or meet other friends/family for dinner. 7 mins?! I thought this kind of crowd was only for festive occasions like CNY countdown or NYE countdown. But no. I was amazed.
1. Amazed at the ability of SMRT to make us pay raised fares and give us lousier service.
2. Amazed at how "efficient" SMRT can be, running trains at full capacity. (Notice I didn't use the word, almost. Yes, trains are running at full passenger load!)
3. Amazed at how no one commented about this issue. Shouldn't there be an observation on the part of the general public? Granted that SMRT is running an extra 93 trains during peak hour, but it is obviously not enough. The SMRT CEO should take a ride on a peak hour train and see how much he enjoys the ride. And I'm not even talking about the train rides being bumpy and making people lose balance ever so often.
One important skill you gain when riding the MRT often enough is the ability to balance yourself. Even then, it's very often to hear a collective clicking of heels on floor when a bad turn is executed. I'm not sure but if you ask me, MRT rides have sort of gotten rougher and more bumpy. Maybe they should turn it into a joyride for tourists - "experience the wild side of Singapore, the twists and turns!"
Bah. 'Nuff said. I hope SMRT and SBS clean up their act soon.
6 comments:
Imagine how it's going to be when Singapore successfully hits its population target of 6 - 6.5 million! Maybe there will be a "Leave for work at 5am" campaign to encourage commuters to avoid the morning rush.. and it wouldn't take me by surprise since that would become a reality soon anyway.
Totally agree. Since the addition of the 93 trains, I've seen little improvement. I recently wrote a paper on this for theonlinecitizen.
Perhaps the MRT trains should operate on a 24-hour basis. This would ease off some of the early morning peak-hour crowd. Or, at least they can start to operate the train from 5.00 am onwards till after 1.00 am.
Whatever way I see it, SMRT must start to extend their operating hours.
CPC
Its a SHE not a HE, proportedly school mate of Ho Ching, used to worked for DFS, and many were saying what the H""" a DFS girl doing at the head of SMRT!?
Recently was in Taipei and the train service just bow me over, never once do I need to wait more than '2 mins!!!!!!!' at anytime of the day, from weekend to weekdays!!!!! and its was so clean and pleasent.
NEVER once u see people elbowing one another when getting in and out of the train as well....
Did I mentioned that its far cheaper and gets you around quicker than our SMRT?! Talk about 'world class tpt - my foot!'
One last point on Public tpt, lately Stray Times run an article about different taxi services in major cities, and Taipei was one of them, over there, they reward the cab driver for picking up fares, and passanger for making a booking, by giving a 20% discount on the meter and NO surcharge!!!!
Maybe our LTA is not unaware of such an idea, but just maybe the policies implemented are simply to protect some 'peoples' interests in these transport companies by making sure they keep breaking RECORD NET PROFIT year after year after year????!!!!!
I hope to see the day when the table are turned and balanced are brought back into this land... balance as in the disparity of income gap etc which the current gov arent interested to do anything about... maybe a repeat of what happened at Taiwan & Malaysia recent election is what this beautiful land needed.....
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Business/Story/A1Story20080324-56001.html
Changes will come. Govt cannot ignore us for too long. It is not the head of SMRT at fault. It is the govt, privatising everything and leaving it to market forces. Used to be we were able to watch world standard soccer for our TV licence fee, now we pay the TV licence fee for what? I feel that no matter what the size of our GRC, changes will come, as long as our bloggers continue to write.
as long as prices keep going up, our GDP will rise in tandem, and our minister will continue to get soaring (soring?) performance bonus. Their short term monetary gain, our long term suffering. This is what it is.
hi everyone.
haven't had time to look at my blog for a while.
thanks for all the comments :)
like the government says, we should learn how to take everything in our stride. what are our options now?
1. suck it up, buy a car that flies over traffic jams
2. whine on blogs
3. join PAP and hope to be minister one day
4. leave SG?
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