7/07/2009

Planning a City for Crawlies

I watched the news last night and was very impressed with what SBS is trying to do to help the wheelchaired commuters. They have a special point with a button to press and the bus will come to the entrance of that point to pick up wheelchaired commuters. It was so convenient and so pleasant for these commuters. Along HDB estates, new hand railings have sprung up all over the walkways for the oldies to grab as their crawl along their ways. We can expect 300k or 400k of the 70s to 90s in the next 20 years, crawling all over the place. Some will wheelchair into buses or MRTs to have a swing in Orchard Road, some jogging in the parts on their wheelchairs, and many going to work, to their offices, if they are still employable. Yes, we are going to have crawlies everywhere, not the vibrant young things in their fanciful gears and makeups. We are ageing as a population. I too will be one of the crawlies. Actually there could be a few hundred thousands even now. Surprising thing is that not many are seen crawling around. Are we expecting them to appear suddenly in the next few years to swarm the city? 200 wheelchairs queuing for the buses at the interchange at any one time. How many buses will have to be at the designated pick up points and how long will it take to clear the queue? The parks, shopping malls, HDB void decks, all littered with crawlies? Possible? I think I will be content to sit in front of a terminal banging away and enjoy a cup of kopi. The only thing that will still be active and have some energy to do so will be the little ones, the fingers, and a few grey and dying cells in between the ears. I really cannot believe that the 80s and 90s will be so itchy to be crawling all over the places. They will only pose a safety and security problem to themselves. We haven't seen or heard any mugging of the oldies yet, except by their children. It may happen, daily, if they offer themselves too freely and easily.

6 comments:

Wally Buffet said...

You don't have to be a crawly if you take steps NOW to be fit, healthy, happy and be as "young" in mind as your children. It's all a state of the mind and the mind is so powerful that it will dictate how your physiology becomes.

All those crawlies you see and for whom our good govt. has now planned are mostly those who abused their bodies with too much tomfoolery, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs etc. when they were younger.

That's the price you pay for the life you led.

Wally Buffet said...

Wa, Redbean. I see a swimmer has been nominated as an NMP. See, in our good country, anything is possible.

Next year, I think I would like to nominate you for a stint in our august House since you are so aware of current affairs and your views are so diverse. I also like your empathy for the downtrodden, the poor, the marginalized, the infirm and now the crawlies who will populate our city in the near future.

You will surely make a good NMP.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

hi wally,

our body will fail us with age. no escape, only a matter of when.

oh, you want to nominate me? redbean of mysingaporenews? no chance. must hold big title, president this, president that.

come to think of it, you can nominate redbean, Emperor of Blogosphere. now, that might carry some weight : )

Anonymous said...

Wow, they are really planning for the oldies.

But, like Redbean, I am sceptical that those who cannot walk properly will want to venture out often. After all, I just heard that a cuppa at Hong Lim costs $5 a whack. A meal outside is no longer cheap.

I hope this is not a prelude to another excuse for fare increases in this bad year.

Lost Citizen

IMAGOD said...

The key here is to break the legs of a few ministers so that they are confined to wheelchairs, which will cause them to wake the fuck up. The purpose is so that the people of the govt who owns and runs the country will get an idea on how it feels to be old and fucked up in a wheelchair.

Other societies have coped with seniors in their population without much fuss. Buses here have pneumatic jacks which lower the bus to street level, and then an electric ramp emerges from below the door so that the people in wheelchairs (and parents with prams) can board. Yes, it takes time...but so what?

The society whose majority of individuals are so impatient that they cannot wait — on public transport — for disabled people to travel, and have their special needs taken care of is not a society I want to be living in.

Anonymous said...

better to have the crawlies in jb than to have them here. save alot of bucks really