>> ASIAONE / NEWS / THE STRAITS TIMES / STORY

Ease jams, make upfront car cost exorbitantly high
Sat, Feb 02, 2008 The Straits Times
I REFER to the Transport Ministry's plan to substantially increase the number of ERP gantries and up the charges. The Transport Minister also said that the solution to growing fat is not to upsize the trousers. However, my question is why have we allowed ourselves to grow fat in the first place? Looking at how the vehicle population has grown 25 per cent over the last 10 years, it is no surprise we are hit by traffic jams frequently. The notion that just because the road network has grown by a certain percentage so we can accommodate a similar growth in car population is flawed because the increase in road network is mostly happening in outlying areas and new towns being built. However, it is the same ECP, PIE, Jalan Eunos, Jalan Besar, etc, that will suffer the effects because these are arterial roads.

ERP will control traffic flow to a certain extent, but it ignored one important but common human trait: When people run late in the morning, many would simply say 'hey, what the heck - just $5 to $8 more solves my lateness problem' and head straight for their cars.

So the most effective solution to congestion is simply to make the upfront cost of having a set of wheels exorbitantly high - like in the past.

The other problem with having such a huge car population but controlling movements only during weekdays is that driving on weekends is becoming a nightmare. I have been caught in no fewer than five jams on a typical Saturday afternoon because the CTE is jammed, Jalan Eunos is jammed, Paya Lebar is chock-a-block and the Bencoolen-Lavender area is choked.

A drive into any shopping mall or heartland shophouse area will entail joining a queue into the carpark, followed by a search within for a lot.

And now, with buildings having reduced number of parking lots, many drivers eventually end up rejoining the roads to look for another lot nearby.

The previous requirement for building owners to have a certain number of parking lots has now been relaxed. Why throw out something that had served us well?

To get back to the good old days of smooth traffic, the car population should be reduced - accompanied by measures to make public transport attractive.

Chiang Meng Lee (Ms)