The Public Transport Commute Challenge!

Why I Am Doing This

I have been toying with the idea for a while already....especially most since my car is stuck one of the many thousands condemned to a snail's pace along AYE every morning, and having to pay the dreaded the ERP despite burning fuel (and $$$$) with the obnoxious amount of time contributing to the greenhouse effect arising from carbon emission.

And thinking that perhaps if I had taken public transport, I would have hit the office faster (Yes, even though I would rather be somewhere else). With the opening of the Circle line. I was wondering if it is time to make the switch.

Seriously, ever since about 2003/4 after I first bought my Gilera Runner, I had not taken public transport to work or anywhere else in general, unless exceptions, for example, if I had to leave over the weekend for a dive trip from work. Not like some friends who I know, who genuinely like driving or cars per se, having a car to me was just about pure convenience. But I do dig the fact that I get to do whatever I like in the car, be it blasting the songs on the radio, or zombing out in the morning on the way to work. Obviously something that I won't get the chance to on a train. :/

Of course, there is also the cost factor. Driving nowadays are getting so so much more expensive with the ERP sucking up money from guileless drivers. Anyhow, the car ownership framework in Singapore is kinda flawed:-

• If COEs are aimed to control ownership, then why has LTA still allow for new releases of COEs? If new COEs are allowed to be issued, albeit at a slower rate, it is still an increase right?

• Ok..so you decided to allow people to buy cars nonetheless, and decide to deter people from crowding the roads by introducing usage-based charges to to stagger the surge in traffic i.e. the ERP. But..... people still need to go and leave from work at a certain time right? I am sure that the employers wouldn't mind if their employees hit the office earlier..but do the employees then have to choice to leave early? If no, they would have to leave late to miss the ERP charges right? More often than not, they will probably just end up as suckers to be had whenever they drive under the guillotine-like structure after a long day of work, hoping for a hot shower and meal, and some chill out time before hitting the sack.

• Okok..maybe the ERP still doesn't really dis-incentivise people to change their driving habits. How about making it really cheap for people to drive during non-peak hours? Ok I must come clean. I am also seriously contemplating if I should convert my car to the revised OPC scheme if this public commute do take off. So I may eventually become part of the guilty crowd of people who leave their cars at home, occupying one precious parking lot; more so now because it is so much cheaper to retain an off-peak car and people want to be free of the awful public transport if they can..and causing the authorities to find ways to accommodate the increase of cars per household in that HDB estate. Just look at the situation of cars who can't find a lot at night and had to park illegally along the kerbs. (Btw I just lost a patch of greenery at the back of my block because they are paving for more packing lots. I'm kinda devastated. )

But..taking the public transport always give me the mental image of a rat race of a humongous proportion. Just image..the MRT door opens and then out pour these many people rushing out from the packed tubes, the whole space thunder with footsteps and these huge surge of human traffic scrambling to take over the escalator wheeling them upwards/downwards. And the cycle continues repeatedly.... Eek.

I had never had to be part of this human rat race because my past jobs didn't require me to report at the usual office hours (actually officially some of them do...but then I believe in flexi-hour - I put in more hours towards the night, but don't expect me to come in super early ...), and obviously I drive..so I never really had to put my EZ link card to much use. Looking back, it had been almost 8 years that I had been driving! If I take public transportation, I wonder if I will suffer from withdrawal symptoms..like will my hands suddenly start twitching to grab the steering wheel or something.

Anyway that was the background rationlisation, which had been bouncing around before I decided to just bite the bullet and start the public commuting TODAY. I am giving myself one month..to see if I succumb to withdrawal symptoms and be sucked back to the car (and swallowing rantings and all about jams, parking, ERPs etc etc..) or survive and blend into the rat race of multitude.

Squeak!

(as for the first day of public transport commute..I kinda survived..kinda..)

In commemoration of that patch of greenery behind my block. You shall be missed dearly whenever I see those OPC cars lined up on the tarmac throughout the days.