Parking up the wrong tree

I knew it would come, sooner rather than later. No, I am not talking about the GST hike - that one would come later rather than sooner (you have the Government’s word on that). I am talking about the Parking Places (Amendment) Bill that was introduced in Parliament to curb indiscriminate bicycle parking. When I saw the unsightly mounds of two-wheelers dumped (rather than parked) like scrap heap across the island, I knew the end was nigh - “How long can the Government tahan when even I cannot tahan!?”

So as sure as night follows day, up popped the proposed scheme to license bike-sharing firms and hold them accountable for their customers’ sins. Under this scheme, the size of the operators’ bicycle fleet would be reviewed every six months, based on how well they manage the illegal parking problem and how often their bikes are used. Other details include data-sharing with the authorities and removing illegally parked bikes in a timely manner. Failure to meet the authorities’ standards would attract fines (max $100K) and even cancellation of licence.

It’s ingenious. In one fell swoop, the authorities have put the onus of tidying up the mess on the operators. And they may well succeed. Monetary caning in Singapore seldom fails, let alone the threat of business closure. But is this really the end of the problem? Have we answered the larger question of what’s behind inconsiderate parking? In the same way that litter bugs treat our island like a gigantic dustbin, bikers are treating it like an unregulated bike-park. But why?

I cast my mind back to a 2015 article by The Straits Times’ Han Fook Kwang who lamented on the declining standards of cleanliness in Singapore. Han’s article was inspired by PM Lee Hsien Loong’s FB post of a photo of the rubbish left behind after a music festival at Gardens by the Bay. A sampling of the comments that followed PM’s post included (a) schools should develop the right values instead of focusing only on academic achievements (b) too many Singaporeans are brought up in households where maids do all the cleaning (c) Singapore society looks down on cleaners, so children grow up thinking cleaning up is beneath them. But the one comment that hit the nail well and truly on the head is ownership and responsibility. When you consider yourself as part of the community and not a community apart, you will take ownership and responsibility of the public space in a way that many bike-sharing riders have so far failed to do.  The authorities should not just stop at fixing illegal parking. Our sense of community needs fixing too. Miss out on that and we would simply be parking up the wrong tree.