Viewpoint on MRT

MRT survey will be a waste of money if....

We are about to spend $4 million on planning our transport system for the nineties (SH Apr 30, 1971).

Two of the terms of reference are that in 20 years the population will be four million and the number of cars one to eight people, or 500,000.

When we start with the wrong terms of reference, a survey just so much waste of time and money, and the implementation of the recommendations probably disastrous.

Let us see how sound these two fundamental terms are.

Doubling of the population to four million in 20 years means a yearly increase of 3.5 percent.

We prided ourselves in having reduced our rate of increase recently to near two percent and held out hopes of a lower rate of two percent, the population in 20 years would be three million.

Where will the extra million come from?

Are we going to imitate our erstwhile colonial overlords and import them for sweeping our streets, driving our buses, nursing our sick, and manning our factories because we have become too prosperous and lazy to do menial task?

Our officials should leave their luxurious bungalows one evening and take a stroll through the housing estates, particularly in the Tiong Bahru-Redhill area, to have a foretaste of what living with four million people in the island will be like.

They will perhaps then advocate the doubling or trebling of our efforts in birth control, instead of planning for a population of four million.

It has been estimated not long ago that the vast Soviet Union had only about 500,000 cars.

For us, a mere pin prick on the globe, to try to match the number of cars possessed by a super power is sheer madness.

The environment of this tiny island will already be severely polluted by the presence of four million people. To pollute it further by 500,000 cars will simply be intolerable.

It is about time we start putting severe curbs on car ownership.

Let us realise that additional car ownership will only be a drain on our financial resources, and a wastage of land in road building.

We do not, and never will be able to make cars to give employment to our people. We do not have the infrastructure nor the home demand to support a car manufacturing industry.

Let us make a realistic assessment of our place in the world, and not get too swell-headed.

There are two ways of making a suit of clothes fit: by making a new expensive suit to fit a fat belly, or by keeping a neat and trim figure. I am all for the latter.


Source: Singapore Herald, May 1, 1971
By Henry L Pau, Singapore