to transport minister lui tuck yew

dear transport minister Sir,

i hope you've noticed that your ministry (and by association, your various stat boards) had been in the spotlight lately.

first, it was due to the deteriorating service standards of public transport, specifically the MRT network, due to overcrowding and insufficient trains.

then, it was the announcement that the transport operators had (yet!) applied for another price hike (what timing after elections!).

today, i read that COEs had hit $72,501 in the latest bidding exercise.

i would humbly like to remind you that you were appointed as minister of transport, not minister of elite transport, or minister-in-charge of increasing our national reserves. increasingly, it seems that we peasants are being penalised for wanting to travel around singapore, whether through private or public means.

i know that there is no panacea to singapore's transportation woes, but i believe that you, and the government, can do more for us. yes, i do see that LTA and SMRT are building the additional MRT and expressway lines now, but that should have been done a few years ago, even before the government decided to open its gates to the world.

and why the abrupt turnarounds in policy? in 98, PM announced that he would try his best to let every household own a car. ok, credit has to be given to PM for boldly promising that, and also to LTA for somehow allowing that to happen in the boom years from 04 - 09. but now, it seems that his promises has faded away, only to be replaced by the highest-bidder-wins system again. i do agree that in space congested singapore, car ownership is not for every household, but i do also feel that the COE bidding system should be changed to an allocation system instead.

let me expound on this: like what PM said in 98, every household should have the chance to own a car. for the sake of discussion, let the "car" be a motorcycle, goods vehicle, or private car. COE should still be implemented, but maybe it can be at a fixed rate of say, $30k (Jul 2011 values). the interesting part comes when first time owners pay 100% of this COE, second time owners pay 150%, third time owners 200%, and so on and so forth unless they can prove to LTA why they need to have more than one car in singapore. for households who really have a need to own a car, for e.g. have a handicapped or elderly member, they should pay only from 0% to 50% of the COE. COE should not be seen as a revenue generator for the government, but rather, whatever is generated from the COE scheme should be used to subsidise public transport. this will make public transport a lot cheaper, and make it a lot more attractive proposition for private transport owners, thus achieving the government's KPI of converting private transport users to public transport.

my second proposition is that taxis should not be required to participate in the COE bidding process. why? they are supposed to form part of the public transport ecosystem and thus, why are they required to bid for the right to drive on the roads? this will only make taxi fares more expensive and encourage private transport. worse, they also artificially drive up COE prices.

lastly, what is the use of a transport minister when he has no control over any means of transport? it is laughable that you can only be only a mediator between the two transport operators SMRT and SBS, just because they have been privatised. you can say all you want, but at the end of the day, all SMRT and SBS have to say is that they "have to account to the shareholders", and you are screwed.

as you were newly appointed, you may set your own KPIs or tweak existing policies, but when doing so, please remember that it is singaporeans' lives that you are experimenting with; we do not need any more yo-yo policies which only cause more anxiety than initial relief. think of the common good when you go to parliament, consider taking back the control of SMRT and SBS, and most importantly, use your heart to feel for the people.

because if you do not, all those statements you made about the state of public transport in singapore (and about taking public transport) would amount to nothing.

yours sincerely,
Jeremy