[Liveable cities]Half the width of all roads should be reserved for bicycle use. Personal mobility devices (PMD) which costs 0.4¢ per km run, bicycles and Metro are the way to go in liveable cities across the world. Double the price of taxi fares, double the price of COE and ERP, petrol tax, parking fees and road tax. CONVERT HALF OF ALL ROADS into PUBLIC TRANSPORT use roads. Only public bus, PMD, emergency police, fire, ambulance are allowed to use the Public Transport only use roads 24/7. (PMD are considered public transportation because it is accessible to everyone e.g. Mobile, cheap 2nd hand bike purchased on carousell etc) All public service vehicles must be festooned with cameras so that in case of any accident, the public servant at the wheel will be taken to task if found wanting. Since the public service vehicle lanes will be painted like today's full day bus lanes but likely twice the size, cyclist and other fitness conscious people will be able to cycle at night (when commuter cycling traffic is scant and buses are off service) and have half the road to themselves to cycle around Singapore for exercise (this DOES NOT INCLUDE EXPRESSWAYS OF COURSE). In fact, baring limitations like the need to stop at traffic lights, even fitness enthusiast cyclists across the world will come to Singapore to do safe night cycling and inbibe in the fitness lifestyle because half of all roads, by policy, would be almost 100% for PMD use. Health and fitness businesses (and 24/7 food outlets) will sprout all over Singapore like mushrooms and hospitals will again have empty beds because healthy and fit people do not need hospital stays, even in later life. All motorised public service vehicles which use the public service vehicle lanes shall have their sirens and emergency light beacons on to warn PMDs and other users on the public service vehicle lanes to give way. This way, people can commute 24/7 at low costs (0.4¢ per km run), door to door without harassing the gahmen to provide more bus and train services at exorbitant costs. Police, fire, anti-terror will be able to arrive at any incident/ crime scene without having to get caught up in traffic jams and instead run on foot to the scene like in the little India riot incident. People will be friendlier because the use of PMDs will allow more social interaction and also more environmentally friendly for the obvious reasons. Best of all, people will be fitter because PMD use entails some balance and exercise too. Singapore's carbon footprint will be much lower and Singapore might even be (almost) independent of energy (petrol) price fluctuations too.
I've just got back from a weekend in Amsterdam. The cycling infrastructure in the centre isn't perfect, there isn't enough space to separate cars, pedestrians and cycles perfectly, but even so, I felt much safer cycling there than here in the UK. In part this is due to the consideration given to cyclists by car-drivers (scooter riders OTOH are *****). My sister-in-law lives near Denver and they have a great network of dedicated bike paths close to them. We have cycle routes defined in the UK but they tend to be on roads shared with cars so not really that safe. As long as the geography isn't against you (the road to my house has 800m of climb at an average of 10%) and your journeys are of a manageable length, then cycling makes sense for a lot of people from a time, cost and health perspective,
Some of the main impediments to cycling: paths are too close besides a busy main street with too many cars commercial spaces are too distant from residential areas the layout of the streets, an open grid allows people to travel more directly between two points, whereas an enclosed maze of dead-end streets so often found in suburbia may make travel impractical unless there are paths strategically interwoven between the walls of houses hilly inclined terrain, obvious it's difficult to ride a bike up a big hill over a long distance Some of this is a combination. It's better if there's a more open network of paths so that people can travel parallel to a main road through a smaller residential road away from large amounts of car traffic. If they have to ride alongside a major streets with many cars for too long of a stretch to get where they are trying to go, they may not find it comfortable, with the noise and closer proximity to car exhaust. Basically, it's very poor planning that makes cycling infeasible in many cities. You can't just add in a cycling network after the fact into a previously planned suburban space. It has to be designed at the same time, especially if the urban area does not have an open grid network of streets.
Hi all, actually in summary, what I was trying to say is that for currently built up, cosmopolitan cities to further develope and leverage upon today's technology of the very user friendly and energy efficient personal mobility devices (PMD) to make public transportation affordable and effective, PMD and subways are the way to go due to their user friendliness and affordability. The purpose of the PMD is as a transportation device to be used to get to and from the subway (unless one wants to travel during subway NON operation periods), then in which case a modern day PMD is able to travel up to 60km on a single battery charge. PMD are a modern day phenomenon due to the only current affordability and widespread availability of lithium ion batteries and efficient electric motors of miniature size. Except for the rare instance of rain, cars are unnecessary since most city commutes are below 20km which lies within the range of the average PMD (however most subway-first/last mile trips will hardly add to 20kms in total).
There are also "super capacitors" that can instantly charge, and wireless magnetic charging, where the mobility device just has to be left leaning up against an urban charging station. This may be feasible so long as there are charging stations along a travel route every kilometer. A variation on this concept involves the capacitor emptying out charging conventional batteries while the vehicle is in motion. This still allows effective instant charging, with the surplus of power slowly being allowed to build up in the batteries. What this means is that, for example, if you go 6 kilometers having stopped very quickly at 6 separate charging stations along the way, you may then be able to go 4 more kilometers across a route without an available charging station. The whole time you would never have had to stop at any charging station for more than a few seconds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places In the greater area where I live we have 8-10 lane freeways, heavily congested local roads, and severe shortages of parking. In my local town of 15,000 we have endless traffic and severe parking shortages. It is incomprehensible to me that adding more and more vehicles to our already dysfunctional transportation systems is an answer to anything. It is not feasible to procure extremely expensive land, force out hundreds of thousands of existing homes and businesses, to build 20 lane freeways! Even if fairy dust allowed us to do this no surface streets can ever handle this quantity of vehicles. Further, it is not practical or economically sensible, to turn very limited land in our population centers into parking lots...I already experience $30-$40 per day parking costs! Society must design our infrastructure to encourage removal of personal automobiles, the addition of public transit, and greatly expand pedestrian-only areas. Kicking the can down the road solves nothing! This is not a mystery and we don't need to wait for technology...it's just a matter of doing better in our future
How about designing new cities to meet these specifications? In the old days, counties used to lay out their own cities, and there was always a civil engineer in the employ of the county. In more recent times it seems like it has all been handed over to private developers.
All development is supposed to follow a formal approval process which includes input from the public. No matter who presents the information, it is your elected officials who make the final decision. Local governments rely on the private sector to do most of the footwork with the government having oversight...
Maybe you should attend your City Council and County Supervisor meetings to see all the public debate and voting...
I can't imagine all the pubs in the land running out of beer and barmaids simultaneously. Elected by 12 people still count's as elected I suppose. But when I want to get some developing done, I go the the planning permission office and the heritage commision. None of them are elected.
"Well now, all the cars placed end to end Would reach to the moon and back again And there'd probably be some Fool pull out to pass Well now, how I yearn for the good old days Without that carbon monoxide haze A-hanging over the roar of the interstate Well if the Lord that made the moon and stars Would have meant for me and you to have cars He'd have seen that we was all born With a parking space Lord Mr. Ford, I just wish that you could see What your simple horseless carriage has become Well it seems your contribution to man To say the least, got a little out of hand Well Lord Mr. Ford what have you done" Jerry Reed, 1973
Planning commissions I work with do the leg work then present to the Council members or County Supervisors for public comment and vote...
