Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

I can’t really put my finger on it, but does it look like most of Singapore’s worst arguments of logic coming from ladies?

Here’s another one, this time on the issue of overcrowding on the North-East line.

Increase frequency of trains on North-East Line
I TAKE the North-East Line, from Boon Keng Station to Dhoby Ghaut, to work in the morning. It is almost impossible to get into a cabin by the time the trains reach Boon Keng Station.

At Farrer Park and Little India, only those who dared to push themselves (and others) can get aboard. The journey is extremely uncomfortable for everyone.

The seven minutes-a-train schedule was set when the flats in Punggol and Seng Kang were not filled, and when the country had a smaller population. Now, there are more people living in Punggol and Seng Kang - in fact, everywhere on our tiny island, contributing to our economy and making it ‘vibrant’. Unfortunately, a more vibrant Singapore is also a more crowded one.

Before SBS Transit starts comparing our trains to Tokyo’s, may I repeat the point a Singaporean who had lived in Tokyo made a couple of years ago when the crowded-trains problem was brought up: Our standard of personal hygiene is not on par with the Japanese’s. In addition, our humid climate makes us perspire and smell. It is no fun being pressed against bodies wet with perspiration and body odour early in the morning.

I hope SBS Transit will look into increasing the frequency of trains during the morning peak hours. If this is not possible, perhaps it could do what the Japanese did: designate a few carriages for women.

Kuah Kar Yoke (Ms)

Ms Kuah, I was happily reading your letter in hope that The Straits Times has finally decided to post something that makes sense. And then I saw your last paragraph.

Are you telling me that designating a “few” carriages for women will solve the problem of overcrowding on trains?

So we decide to take up this suggestion in its infinite wisdom and do just that. The ladies take up two or three carriages out of six on the train, and the smelly men are all packed into the other three cabins. How does that enable more people to pack into the same MRT train? We still have the same number of commuters trying to squeeze into the same train; designating sections for ladies will at its best improve the situation for the ladies. Men would have only 3 cabins to go to, compared to all 6 for the ladies. If that doesn’t sound sexist, her implicit declaration that men perspire and smell does.

I myself board the train at Boon Keng station, and I travel to Outram Park for my line transfer to the West line. What I’ve seen is that wait times for the next train will always be at least 5 minutes during the morning peak hours. Unless the train interval is there for the sake of safety (in which case I would have rather had the safety officers in the train manually operate the train during peak hours to enable more trains to operate at one time), I don’t see any other reason for operating that few trains, except perhaps SBSTransit is trying to get away with packing as many people like sardines into a can as it can get away with.

This is yet another example which shows that the competition situation in the transportation arena is sorely lacking. Without either competition or governmental regulation, passengers are the only losers in this game.

Filed under: Current Affairs