Singapore to Stop Adding Cars in February 2018
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfront cost but good luck getting a car park for less than $500/m - and you'll have to prove you have one to register the car. Adds up to about the same amount.
I live 100m from a train station with 2 lines, automated trains come every 3-4 minutes, 8 minutes to my workplace. Bike share outside my door. 3 supermarkets and hundreds of shops within walking distance. If absolutely necessary, there's Uber or grab. You don't need a car here. It's a luxury for the rich, and that's pretty much as it should be IMO.
Parents of children under 12 should also be given a pass.
(Unless outsourcing the population is a deliberate tactic, of course.)
So either we discuss the reality where the next available pediatrician is in the next city (1h with two busses, imagine this trip with a sick child on your hands).
Or we discuss the fantasy world of "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily". But then stop asking, what is it about children that you need a car.
It sucks that today youngsters are treated as dumb. Even though the world is getting safer and safer.
So no, I did not consider biking with a second seat. It is completely unrealistic.
Yeah, cycling near trucks is terrible, I wouldn't do it either.
I used to walk to school alone when I was little. When I was a little older I walked my younger brother to his school, then I walked to mine. My parents didn't need a car to do that for us.
However all of us used a car to go shopping once a week. A four people family buys an incredible amount of stuff. Sometimes I walked with my mother to small shops to buy fresh food during the week.
We also walked to health care centers. Everything was in a 20, maybe 30 minutes range.
If cities are planned to place homes close to important locations there is little need for cars.
The younger child goes to a kindergarten on the opposite end of Bad Homburg. That's 40 minutes with the bus one direction. No, there was no option of a kindergarten closer to our house. There was no option at all, you just take it where you get place.
The younger child has an illness and we have to bring him to a therapy at least once a week. That's in a hospital in another sattelite city on the opposite end of Frankfurt. Two hours with bus one direction.
The older child has allergy treatment in another hospital in Frankfurt. One and a quater an hour with public transport.
And these are just a few examples.
Without a car my wife would probably have to stay home just to manage children.
To answer your question - children introduce spatial responsibilities we you can't typically efficiently manage without a car.
The argument that there are currently great reasons for automotive mobility isn't affected by the notion that a set of imagined circumstances could enable people to stop being reliant on cars in the future.
The original thought was "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury." You're describing a situation where the first criteria was not met so the second, of course, won't follow. So your situation doesn't apply and it doesn't take away from the original idea.
"Everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury" is a nice thought, no objections.
So how about we'll talk about "owning a car ... should be considered a luxury" first when "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily" is implemented? Because it's pretty far from my reality.
It also looks like Ober-Erlenbach and Nieder-Erlenbach are the only two villages and twos around Frankfurt that don't have a train station to Frankfurt.
Almost every reason I've ever seen given for needing a car have to do with deciding to live somewhere with terrible public transport or lack of public infrastructure nearby.
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/why-are-littl...
A bonus of public transport is that you can let your kids do whatever once they hit 13. There's always a few awkward years where they can basically care for themselves but can't drive.
Today's parents are way too paranoid. My mom grew up in the country and back then all the kids were driving by 12 even in town. I think modern age limits are more about making sure you can get charges to stick in court than a safety issue
It's subtly different. The core idea is that car ownership has externalities and the implementation of solving these externalities is to limit absolute numbers and let the market decide what use to make of the quota. Luxury ownership is just one of many uses competing. Uber recently pushed prices up a bit [1] as it bought itself a rental fleet for its subsidiary Lion City Rentals; the ROI on these cars is worth more to Uber than what a citizen is prepared to pay to own a car.
A parallel might be real estate. Yes, you could run a warehouse in Wall Street, but even if you get the permits from the local planning association, you'll be outbid by the investment banks. There is even an example of "luxury" Wall Street real estate in the form of 23 Wall Street [2] which was "purposely designed to be only four stories tall" whilst surrounded by skyscrapers.
It is worth noting that the Singapore government actively works to reduce demand for cars, by increasing the quality and extent of public transport, making it accessible to all, and regulating the taxi and delivery industries carefully to enable them to be cheap and easily available. A COE-type scheme introduced in a city without high quality alternatives (such as Sydney or Los Angeles) would cause the immediate fall of the government responsible and a policy reversal from the newly elected replacement.
[1] http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/uber-bids-co...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Wall_Street aka the "House of Morgan"
Well of course. It's a huge undertaking which would have to be executed over a generation, which probably requires a level of bipartisan political maturity and commitment that NSW can't muster (talking about Sydney). It could certainly be done though, maybe not with a COE system but by some other method of gradually pushing people out of their cars and into an expanding public transport network.
I guess describing everything they could do would take a book, but a good first step would be getting rid of the ridiculous helmet laws so at least people could ride to the station if they want to, and provide japanese-style mass bike parking there. Then just slowly start increasing the tax on cars, petrol, parking and tolls while absolutely pouring money into infrastructure (not roads), stopping any further urban sprawl, and systematically rezoning towards higher density and walkability. In 25 years you could achieve a lot.
I agree though, not going to happen anytime soon. Things will have to get worse before they can get better.
Yes, the US has a problem with sprawling cities and suburbs, driving is part of the culture but it's a myth that it only works for small cities, one that I've seen repeated here and on reddit far too many times.
Also, the “problem” of sprawling cities isn’t a problem for everyone. There’s no way in hell that I’ll move back to a cramped rat race of a city like NYC, and I am sure I’m not alone in feeling this way.
“I knew that once people in Singapore could have a car, they’d never give it up. So, before it got out of control, I said you need a Certificate Of Entitlement before a car is yours; and the permitted up-tick in number of cars depends on what the road capacity is. That was the first move. So, you bid for it. If you issue more entitlement certificates than is prudent, roads are jammed. Then a younger generation took over and says, well, why not have more cars and we charge them by the usage on the roads instead of just purchase? I told them, okay, okay, have a car, have more cars! But once you’ve got a car, you will never give it up.” [...]
“I was moved on policy-thinking about transit by psychology. They are moved by maximizing road space. Okay, then you would antagonize more motorists. I would rather have less cars and get everybody to use the public transport, but a younger generation thinks this is the way to go and you are in charge, then go for more cars.”
I remember being in LA in the 2000s, and not renting a car (the innocence of growing up in Europe...). I sampled the buses that took 1.5 hours to go from Beverly Hills to Downtown. I paid $200 for a return cab ride from Santa Monica to Hollywood at rush hour.
In comparison, if the MRT has a 30 minute delay in Singapore it is national news [2].
[1] Tom Plate, Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew - https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew-Singapore/...
[2] http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/commuters-hi...
I'm used to public transportation from Germany, but SG's transportation is so much better and very affordable on top. Cabs, Grab and (no clue, never used it myself) Uber are cheap when you need an alternative. I had a car for most of my life in Germany, don't miss it a single bit in SG.
Given that the standard of living is high, pretty much everyone will be able to afford cars if they cost the real market price. This will make movement impossible even if the populace owned cars just for leisure use.
That said, if space is a real constraint, I think they could make a deal with Malaysia, if they really needed to, but I think their independent streak is too strong to allow that thought --they once were part of it, pre-independence. On the other hand there are "autonomous" regions out there.
The question[1] has been considered in some circles, although more fantasy than anything else due to enormous, maybe insurmountable, cultural and ethnic differences. One is Sinetic the other Malay --and in the past lead to some terrible ethnic riots.
[1]https://www.quora.com/What-if-Singapore-combines-with-Malays...
You got that right. This will never happen.
That said, Singapore has been friendly with neighbouring Johor for many years so a deal could be possible given the state's own ambitions.
Driving a vehicle outside the legal parameters (i.e. without paying the access fee) will carry classic Singaporean sentencing rules.
If you only want a certain number of cars driving in the city with good reason, then charge the amount which gives you that number.
Perhaps the reason London hasn't set the prices correctly, is that they want maximum revenue instead of a truly limited supply.
http://roadpricing.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/singapore-will-ha...
It seems like they could do more interesting things with it in the future though. :- )
It's a toll system, that taxes you for driving on key roads during rush hours. Say electronic "Drive on this road before 9.30 and you'll be taxed 2.5 dollar" signs. That feels like a decent idea to me?
Bloomberg has also updated its headline to read: "Singapore Will Stop Increasing Car Numbers From February 2018"
My concern was that without reading the article, few people may know that in Singapore, most cars are usually removed (retired) from road use after 10 years.
In other words, I think 'stop increasing' sums up the situation better than 'stop adding'.
1. Wow, all of these cars are annoying -- let's restrict them
2. But, rich people own these cars, and many of them drive into the city to spend money, which pays the workers
3. We all agree traffic is annoying, so those rich people sure must prefer to drive their cars
4. Hmmm, what will happen if we punish/tax/regulate their cars? Possible they'll stop coming into the city?
5. If that happens, what happens to the workers?
My primary point is that it's easy to say, "these cars suck, so let's tax them" without thinking through all of the ramifications.
4) Why do they prefer driving these cars? Can we make public transport as good or even better than driving a car?
5) Let's put in place a plan to improve public infrastructure while restricting new cars on the road.
6) Once we satisfactorily accomplish 5, we can phase out cars.
My primary point being it's easy to create strawman lines of thought and have no meaningful conversation. ;)
Speaking by analogy, most of us rational thinkers accept that we cannot make conclusions such as "our government needs more money, therefore we must increase taxes." Maybe, but maybe not.
But I've noticed with cars (or, maybe insects) it seems to be easier to jump to "let's tax and regulate these bothersome machines away."