At the risk of sounding like a broken old record, I’m going to point out once again that the PAP government failed in the last 10 years to adequately plan our infrastructure for the huge influx of immigrants and foreign workers that we saw between 2005 and 2010. One bugbear for many Singaporeans (mostly from the middle to lower classes, who take public transport), is the overcrowding on buses and MRT trains.
The government’s grand solution to all this was to build more MRT lines. Hence the huge investment of over $10 billion to build the Circle Line (up from a budgeted $6.7 billion) and another $1.4 billion to build the Downtown Line. While I don’t begrudge this necessary investment in a public good, the benefits from this investment are playing a game of catch up with our ever-growing population.
What we needed were interim solutions to solve the immediate problem of “crush loads” on our bus and train networks. This could not be achieved by building more lines, as they take years to complete. Hence, Singaporeans have been forced to squeeze on unbearably crowded trains with fellow commuters for the past few years while construction of the new lines was going on. We were repeatedly told by the government, “Don’t worry, relief is coming soon. We’re building more lines.”
One interim solution that could have been carried out much faster (and at much lower cost) than building new lines was to increase train frequency, within the limits of the ageing signalling system.
I had raised this proposal during my maiden speech in Parliament last month. I had said:
…if the Government is serious about encouraging our people to drive less and use more public transport, it must give priority to tackling the overcrowding problem on trains. The solution lies not only in building more lines, but making better use of the existing lines by increasing train frequency and maintaining that high frequency for longer periods, especially during peak hours.
Why can’t the MRT operators maintain a train interval of two minutes from 7am to 9am, and from 5pm to 8pm? Is it because of technical constraints, or because it will increase their costs and reduce their profits?
Continue reading “MRT train crush and the solution right under our noses”