Not getting you there

With the recent spots of rain, the other worries that I have is also transport. As you know, I do not have my own sets of wheels (Not even the licence to operate my own set of wheels, yet) I have to go public about it.

Now, our transportation is still rather decent, but I am afraid that pride and complacency (damn this word, I might end up using this word in every post and bold it in 08) makes our public transport "World Class" in our brags.... I am sure it is world class...but not sure if it is top of the third or bottom of the first..

Mr Lim recently revealed a plan to improve our already excellent public transport and goes about changing and tweaking it to make it even more world class least we start getting complacent. It would have been perfect if not for those blasted Taxi company coming about and raise the taxi fare a few prior to that... Now, Taxi is not really public transport in case that you wonder. They are a privately owned commercial entity who gives people false impression that it is a public transport. So, a fare increase is something more of a commercial decision. Only little thing here is that, the majority of the taxi are owned by 1 company (which incidentally belongs to a public transport company which runs both rail and buses as well), so when the price goes up, even if it is just one company, you are assured that at least 3 in 5 taxi on the street are affected. And in a manner that in other sector would be considered price fixing, almost every other single company raised their price to the same level. And while most would consider price increase is the part and parcel of everyday life in this decade, Nothing trumps it more when the increment is in effect 35 to 40%, which is only paled by our GST increase (5 to 7 is not 2%, it is a 40% increase)

Most casual taxi riding folk did what any sane rationale people will do, they give their favorite cab ride a miss and starts to join the fold of the MRTs and buses. SO much so that during peak hours nowaday, it is not uncommon that people miss the train due to the sheer density of people in it. But I am pretty sure that this is just my daily hallucination as we can easily pack 1200 people per train.

Most should be envious if not seething with emerald tint jealousy at the taxi driver as they now pocket most of the extra earning as told by 1 MP on a local TV show. But I would ask you to put down that torch and pitchfork for now... while the fare increase for more than 35%, their earning went up from about 290+ to a grand figure of 307 on average.... Now, isn't that fantastic. It doesn't really matter if you are wheelchair bound, no idea where you have to go and no idea where the taxi stand is, you will have to alight and board at the taxi stand..... do not be surprised if some policeman or his outsourced counterpart runs out from a nearby bushes and book you in record quick time in case you are caught flouting this law...

If that wasn't enough, anyone that is rich enough to take a cab in the CBD area are now required to wait or alight at taxi stand or at some private side roads..... and that you will have to pay 3 dollars more for this world first privilege....Sounds like a great deal to me.... But I guess now that as buses will be the new king of the road.. it make business sense to actually start a bus service that lets you travel in comfort from a bus stop near your house to the CBD.. but sorry... soemone beat me to it before I can finish typing the title "business plan"....

What I should be grateful is that there will be new MRT line in the pipeline so that we are not too complacent with our rail network in case it becomes less relevant..... we have not 1 but 2 new lines adding to our MRT network.... One thing I will make sure when my daughter is old enough is that she does draw a cute big elephant in white... I am sure that there is a market for that...

In case you eschew our fantastic public transport network and try to go for your own set of wheel, you might like to know that just last year, you had an increase in about 9% of road users, this despite the fact that only 1 agency can print the COE and knows intimately how much road is available and how pack they are.... They did say that they will peg it at 3.5% this yr which means that the COE can only go up...

On top of that, there will be more ERP to ensure that you have a smoother flow on not just highway... it could be as close as right outside your carpark....