It's not car ownership that is the problem, it's road usage. The government couldn't care less if you had a huge Mercedes parked outside your house to show off to your friends... it just doesn't want you to take it onto the roads.sundaymorningstaple wrote:the growth of car ownership says that there are more drivers and not less.
And of course there are more drivers in absolute numbers. But a few comparisons may shed a little light. Singapore's population is growing by 4.4% while vehicle growth is capped at 3%. So in relative terms, car ownership per capita is falling. Also, Singapore's GDP per capita ranks in the top 10 according to IMF, World Bank and CIA rankings, yet is not even among the top 50 in the world for car ownership according to an Economist report which quoted International Car Federation figures. (Darn, all my URL links got blocked so I can't show you the sources of these statistics - you'll have to google just like I did).
So while opinions are well and good, objectively it would seem that something is being done right to manage car ownership. As for road usage, go to any other major city in the region and come back and tell me what you think of Singapore.
Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. Even the taxi drivers now look at me in surprise when I say use the expressway at peak hour, which means lots of people are choosing alternative routes. I know people who go to work early or work late to avoid ERP. I also know people who choose to leave the car home and use public transport if they work in the city or are meeting friends there socially. Of course there is still traffic going into the city. The point is, you don't see the alternative. Try one week without ERP and I'm sure you will see a huge difference.sundaymorningstaple wrote:ERP doesn't reduce traffic as all, it just reroutes it for a little while.
The only thing that the ERP is "supposed" do to is to smooth traffic flow heading into the city during the rush hours. If fails miserably however