11/10/2007
Night ERP charges
Not very long ago, if I can remember, control of road congestion is to free the roads to facilitate commercial activities. Our business and trading activities must not be curtailed by a clogged road and nothing moves. The CBD and Orchard Road gantries were set up to free the area from traffic jams.
It is interesting to see the introduction of night ERP charges in CTE till 10.30 pm for home bound traffic. After 6pm, most of the commercial activities other than shopping, food and entertainment must have closed shop. And these are people going home or doing their social activities. The CTE may be slow, but it is leisure time. Why the need to activate the ERP charges?
If this logic is allowed to get through, weekend and holiday ERP charges will soon be introduced as well. The activation of ERP charges will then be dependent on road congestion and nothing to do with the slowing down of commercial and business activities.
Then come weekends or holidays, no chance of driving around freely. Pay to drive every where and on every day.
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7 comments:
Hi Redbean,
The sad thing with all these ERP charges is that the roads remain congested!
I dunno..do we really have too many cars now?
Or are people simply avoiding the public transport system? If so, is it because the public transport system is not integrated enough or simply not up to scratch in terms of conveninence, comfort and availability?
Or maybe S'pore is getting overcrowded?
Somehow, I don't think the problem will be solved. I am not optimistic. The situation seems to have deteriorated over the past few years. (Just like the taxi situation. Sure, enforcement on touts are stricter...but the underlying problem remains, that of supply. Anyway, separate topic altogether..)
Whatever it is, all I can say is, if you wanna drive, be prepared to pay and pay. This is only the beginning! If you wanna take public transport, bear with the inconvenience.
BH
When you are pampered for too long and become soft, you complain about everything that is slightly out of line. Soon you will be getting the government to wipe your backside too.
there are many reasons for people who need to drive. ferrying children, inconvenience of public transport, timing, rushing etc.
yes, raising erp is like a morphine jab. does not solve any problem except a temporary relief. and we are paying million dollars for these kinds of solutions.
i can employ ah bengs and pay them $3000pm to think of similar solutions.
the dream of everyone, not only singaporeans, is to have an easier or better quality of life.
what is the point of struggling to end up struggling and struggling? what is the point of striving and working hard to end up with a hard life?
sadly, this is the big picture of a singaporean life when the priorities are wrong.
RedBean, I know where they learnt all these ERP charges and likes from - Sim City 4
In Sim City 4, if the mayor wants to earn lots of money, he will build an expressway/avenue to cater for traffic, then install road tolls to earn all the monies back. Sure way of income, especially for industrial areas, coz all the trucks moves out of town.
Commercial areas aso, coz people will have to spend at commercial areas buying goods. So the real winner is the mayor, at the expense of travel time and cost of the residents.
A "pay-to-use" system for roads is actually the most fair system of all.
People who use the roads more, should pay more. After all, the roads are goods, and goods need to be produced and maintained, and eventually replaced.
no, they learnt from malaysia. the malaysian govt is so eager to build bridges and roads for what, to collect tolls.
and we are taking the same path.
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