Owning a car in Singapore, one of the world’s most expensive countries, has always been something of a luxury. But costs have now soared to an all time high.
Honestly, as much as I wanted a car as a 20-something, I do think this is for the better. There needs to be some adjustments as a lot of the buyers are commercial entities trying to corner a somewhat unsustainable ridehailing market, but overall I'm happy with the tradeoff, especially with the improvement in public transport in recent years.
I've only visited once and that was several years ago, I'm surprised to hear the public transit has actually gotten better. I'm from Chicago, which is one of the few US cities with a functional metro, and it's blown out of the water by the mrt just on comfort alone
Yea cars make so little sense there that I’m glad to see they treat it like first class on the airlines: it costs such an exorbitant amount that it’s basically just there to subsidize everyone else.
It never was a need. This is a myth build by the car manufacturers. They lobbied for the car centered model with oil companies. This never was the model.
As someone who has lived in a large city, with a fully functional public transportation system, I was thankful for it, although it took me 2 extra hours of my life every day.
But living in a city, packed and stacked like merchandise in shelves is not a good way to live.
I got out the first opportunity I could take. Cost me family, friends and lower income but I don't regret it.
Metropolises are not the way for civilization and CoViD was a cruel demononstration of how flawed the concept is.
With a fully functional, affordable, universal public transport system
Y'all got any of them magic carpets?
They're just as real as this mythical perfect public transport system.
And cars will always be more convenient. Convenience wins every time.
My point is it's unnecessary to own a car in a place that is so small. I'd have to hike for several days across windswept mountains in subzero temperatures to get to the next large(ish) town.
Of course it's based on money and not need based or a lottery system or anything like that because fuck the non-rich, amirite? I mean, if you don't have a net worth in the seven figures are you even a person?
I'm not disagreeing with you. But the only people that get the right to travel in a car are the rich. Rather than it be based on a needs-based system or lottery system. The rich get the right, but normal people don't. That's the point he's trying to make.
To add to the other comment, COE has multiple categories, 106k is for cars with 1.6L engine displacement (or a certain amount of power for EVs) and above.
Singapore is an island city-state. The rural part of Singapore is Malaysia, a different country -- and one that is also famously pretty damn dense where the people live.
Cars are a significant source of pollution, and Singapore has space issues. Honestly, this is probably a good thing. The cultural thing we have going on with burning oil in the form of gasoline is going to kill everybody in the next few decades if we don't work to stop climate change.
I'm not one to defend Singapore much, but owning a car there is a very unnecessary luxury, so this is a pretty unfair reason to dislike Singapore (I can give you some better ones if you'd like).
Honestly in other big cities (NYC, London) most people would benefit from a COE scheme keeping car traffic under control.
but owning a car there is a very unnecessary luxury
I live in a huge urban city (about 10M ppl) with one of the best public transportation system in the world. Only real reason I NEED a car is a) when I go out of the city or b) move a lot of things.
Even in the case of b), I use rental car something like this:
It's a compact car that can move some serious shit(image is the van version. you'll normally have all the passenger seats like a normal car). Perfect car in the urban area imo. Bigger than that is honestly almost unjustifiable.
I mean, fuck cars but people are not going to be ditching cars any time soon because it's just darn nice to have, even when there's public transportation readily available in basically anywhere in the city. Transitioning to reasonable cars like this might be something we can work on for the short term?
I mean, as far as movement is concerned there's a lot more freedom than in most of the US.
Singapore, you can pretty much get around anywhere you want quickly, safely, and cheaply using any of a variety of transportation modes.
US you're forced to use a car and if you can't afford one you can use someone else's (taxi or rideshare) at a markup. Most people live in places that have no other viable modes, even though 80+% of people live in towns and cities that would have tons of alternatives pretty much anywhere else in the world (and would save money on their municipal budgets in so doing).
Charging people for the social cost of their personal luxuries, especially luxuries that have immense social cost like cars, in order to fund social goods is not something so ridiculously unreasonable. You should probably pick something actually bad if you want to criticize Singapore.
I have total freedom of movement in the USA. I have a car and a motorcycle that are both paid in full, reliable, and efficient, and I live in a beautiful rural area where there is almost zero traffic congestion.
I can drive anywhere I want with total control over my own direction and destination. That is actual freedom.
Meanwhile I took a rideshare from a site visit at 5:30pm and there was already some congestion on the expressway. I cannot imagine what it'd be like if it was a free-for-all for cars.
Well here in my part of the USA, I can hop in my car and be at the front door of several restaurants or grocery stores within 5 minutes because I live in a nice area with low population density. Traffic jams almost never happen in my area. I have my own house and land where I can do anything I want. I work from home most of the time and don't have to travel at all. On the days when I choose to work from the office, it's an easy 20-minute drive from my home with zero traffic jams.
On top of all that, I can have any kind of alcohol I want and medical marijuana is legal. I can criticize my government leaders in public without fear of reprisal. I could be gay and have anal sex with men legally if I wanted to.