SG Complains

Selected ERP rates to go up by 50%, new gantry at PIE

According to AsiaOne News:

Motorists will have to pay more to use the Eastbound ECP (Marina South) and the slip road from Ophir Road.

From November 3, ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) rates for two gantries will be increased by 50 per cent to $1.50, announced the Land Transport Authority (LTA) today.

Currently, ERP rates for both gantries stand at $1.00. The rates for the other gantries will remain unchanged.

ERP will also be implemented along the PIE (Westbound) before Eunos Link with effect from Nov 3.

From 7.00am to 7.30am, motorists will have to pay $2.00. From 7.30am to 8.00am, they will only have to pay $1.00. According to LTA, traffic speeds along the stretch have fallen below the threshold levels.

LTA reviews the traffic conditions on the expressways and roads every quarterly and for the June and December school holidays.

- This news got my friends fuming mad as the Government had calculated the Road Tax versus ERP fees previously did not account for more additional charges with flexibility by LTA.

It’s is true that the Government had cut the road tax charges but it the discount may not cover the future increase in ERP charges hence the total charges will go up significantly based on usage instead of ownership.

This means the Government will charge you more based on usage of roads less so for ownership.

The COE system did not really bring the number of cars in Singapore down due to over estimation of number of scrapped cars and over supplying of COE.

My proposal for the future of car ownership is the following.

1. Ride bicycle.
2. Ride Bus
3. Ride MRT
4. Privatize LTA
5. Fine LTA for every traffic jams created because of over supply of COE.
6. Sing karaoke while trapped in jams, record it and upload to youtube.
7. Reduce the number of COE issued based on REAL scrapped numbers of the previous year instead of using estimation.
8. Give bonus to scrap vehicles like Road Tax discount or Free tires or something.

This coincide with public transport woes, the jam in public transport is seriously affecting morales of workers in Singapore and they can’t possibly go to work on time with such jams.

Problems such as

1. Unable to squeeze onto train and have to wait for many trains before able to board
2. Unable to board buses too and have to wait for long time before people can board a bus.
3. Taxi surcharges is too high, taxi exploited surcharges making themselve “unavailable” during peak hours to force people to phone booking them with additional charges.

Solutions suggested

1. Make public transport work 24 hours on weekdays – this is to make flexible working hours more easier to achieve.
2. Give people incentive to go on flexible hours working status like cheaper bus/mrt rides during off peak hours (early morning or late at night)
3. Make bicycle lane more user friendly for electric bicycle to zoom around safely.
4. Encourage work from home with incentives like tax breaks and higher GST hand out.
5. Quit and die…ahhhhhhhhhh haha…