11 June 2012:
I understand the agony of public transport.
Last year during the general election, one of people's biggest complaints was about public transport. It was too crowded, they said. There are too many 'foreign talents' that invade our shores and take up our seats on public transport.Since then, the Transport Ministry has taken some steps in an attempt to solve this problem. To me, it hasn't been solved. For a fact, I did not keep track of the changes or additional measures put in place, so I may be wrong in some areas. I do know that the government intends to use $1.1 billion dollars to fund public transport providers - which was met with much public fury.
Today I finally experienced what commuters felt when they went home from work every day. For the journey home I took MRT and bus. The MRT was not too packed, since I boarded from the first station, so it was empty when I boarded. Along the way more people came in and it did get a little squeezy. But that's alright, the MRT part of my journey.
The bus part of my journey was the terrible one. There were so many people outside Paya Lebar interchange's bus stop. When my bus arrived, you could see a crowd surging towards the entrance of the bus. Inside, it was really packed. I really experienced the feeling of 'packed like sardines'.
Previously, I either commuted by car, or by MRT or bus during non-peak hours. Hence, I could not experience this squeeze, and did not really empathise with the people's anger. Now, I fully understand why people are so angry.
Some people blame the 'foreign talent'. Personally, although I don't have too good an impression of them, I don't think the blame's all on them. After all, it was the government who allowed so many 'foreign talents' to arrive. To me, they should be the ones who are largely responsible for this.
Before opening the floodgates to 'foreign talents', they should have ensured that basic segments of society such as transport or housing would be taken care of for both the FTs and local people. Now, they are struggling to rectify to situation.
Obviously, the government cannot kick away all FTs overnight. They have cut the quota of FTs allowed into Singapore. Of course, it still does not help the existing problem; it only prevents the problem from snowballing.
From what I know, the number of bus and MRT services will increase. With this increase, I suppose the next move the transport companies would be the increase the fares, the reason being 'an increase in expenses' or whatever other fancy term they like to conjure.
I viewed the website of Transport for London, which, as its name suggests, is the company that manages London's buses, MRTs (they call it the Tube), railways, taxis, and even some water transport. I don't know if it's a classic case of 'the grass is greener out there', but I really feel that London's transport system is way better than ours. In all fairness, I only viewed some information and a leaflet, so it could be that obviously only the best side of London's transport network is shown to me.
Speaking of the severe overcrowding in buses and MRTs, that brings me to the issue of cars, another mode of transport. In SS, we learn that the ERP method is used to control the number of cars on the roads. People would be encouraged to use public transport, since it's also more eco-friendly. But how are these people suppose to take public transport when they will be packed like sardines?!
If 1000 or more people really decide that from tomorrow onwards they would only take public transport to and from work, will the public transport system be able to cope? Obviously not; the system is already struggling now. And yet, the number of cars on the roads are still as many, and there are traffic jams every day during morning and evening peak hours.
Basically, the ERP method has not been very effective. Perhaps last time in the 90s or 00s (how does one pronounce that?!) it was slightly useful, since families were generally less affluent and felt that paying a few dollars a day was a pinch. Now, however, people view it more like a necessary stage of driving. Only the low-income group and those who are very prudent will purposely avoid ERP, I suppose.
... Sometimes what we learn in SS isn't that ideal, eh? I'm not going all out here and saying that SS is merely propaganda for us students, but in a more objective light, the textbook doesn't really give a realistic scene in the current days. (On an unrelated note, I wonder what policy would the next syllabus feature. Before my time was housing and population policy, now I'm studying population and traffic policy. Next time ... maybe back to housing?)
JQ was saying that "[something is] contrary to everything we have been learning in ss". Yeah, that's the sad case. Maybe that's why people would opine that SS = propaganda, cos it's too idealistic in its content.
Oh and to JQ (since you're overseas now I shall type this here instead): sometimes learning law may not seem that cool. Sometimes lawyers go against their conscience just to earn legal fees. You may say that you won't (perhaps every lawyer says so) but in the end, 99% does so. In retrospect it doesn't seem so cool. I think you can study law for one or two modules in some courses. But probably if you start warning people of being charged by this or that act, they'll think of you as obnoxious. Hehe #justsaying.
JQ mentioned about "how concise our laws are, how they define everything so clearly and having almost no loopholes". That may be true in some respects, but Singapore law still has areas for rectification. For one, the Internal Security Act. The only grace is that it has been rarely used nowadays.
I really don't want to dig into the history of the ISA, but simply, it has been used to arrest political dissidents with no apparent danger to Singapore. In fact, some arrested under ISA were not even dissidents. There's a lot of resources on the internet about the uses of ISA in the past; people interested can go read it.
In February 1991, then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mentioned about "Singapore seriously consider[ing] abolishing the Internal Security Act if Malaysia were to do so" in an interview. In March 2012, the ISA was repealed in Malaysia. It's been 3 months since March, has the Singapore government thought of even doing any amendment to our own ISA?
On cyberspace, I've read many blogs calling for the ISA to be abolished. The main reason would be because the Act has been unfairly used to crush political dissent. In fact, the actual reason why the ISA was set up in Singapore (and Malaysia) was to crush the communists. The Act was formed in 1960s, where there was Cold War.
It's been 50 years; the Soviet Union broke down close to 20 years ago. The remaining communist superpower is China. (To me, North Korea is merely the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes.) Even so, China is now more socialist. In conclusion, there is no need for ISA. Other more specific acts could be set up, like Malaysia, to curb religious extremists, which is part of the Act.
Actually, Singapore's law isn't very specific at certain areas. There are some laws that were worded vaguely; it's up to the judge to decide. Only when cases appear, then do people realise that these laws have loopholes. Otherwise, it sure does look like the laws are well-constructed.
I really did search for how to pronounce '00s'. Some recommended placing '20' in front, so it would be '2000s', and pronounced 'two thousands'. However, this seems weird, since we pronounce years as 'twenty-_____', instead of 'two thouand and _____'. Instead, there was a British way: 'the aughties'. The word aught comes from naught, which represents zero. According to some sources, this is the way people used the pronounced '00s' back then. Ten years later, '10s' would be back to normal, being 'the tens'.
To JQ: I'm really not 針對-ing you, yeah? It's just that I thought of lots of stuff to say when I read those parts of your posts. Oh and 我有話和你說, maybe I shall tell you when you return.
Okay TTFN.