The ERP and me
Hate to flog a dead horse, but this ERP thing is getting to me. Gantries are so common now I think that every home should have one for national day decorations. Think about it a personalised gantry to place over your car. I think we can even have variations... A nice BIG POWERFUL looking gantry for the SUV drivers and maybe a range of small itty bitty ones for the the plastic fisher price cars and the Perodua Kancil. Our embassies overseas can also have gantries over their gates so that Singaporeans living overseas need not go too far to have a taste of home... brilliant sia. But none of them will be as awe inspiring of course as the spanking new gantry they planted smack in the path of my way home from school.
Like alot of things in Singapore, the new gantry appeared out of nowhere one day. Ok, maybe it was sitting inside some bureaucrats asshole until it was ready to be sprung on the driving populace. But anyway, from day one, I knew love was not meant to be. The bleddy thing almost caused an accident because the idiots infront of me slowed down to see it...
"Wah.... new gantry...."
Like fucking moths to the flame I reckon. I was surprised though that no grassroots types were there "spit shining" the pole since it was the latest thing out from the government.
"Wah sir, your gantry erect so fast, so hard and so accurate. And by the way ah, can you helps my son get into the gifted steam?"
Oh well, I'm so glad it will solve the traffic situation though, after all surely by charging us motorists money, we will not use the roads during the said timing. Go figure...
The communists would just have instituted a curfew, clean and simple. Travel between 6 to 8 and one of your children dies but not before we take your pigs and chickens. But nooo, since we are a market society, we need to apply market mechanisms hence this ultra sophisticated approach of hitting our wallets which would surely work. My ass it will! I think the scheme is as likely to work as I do of becoming skinny.
But just for once I would like to get into the minds of the policy folk. How does this fit into the grand scheme of things?
Firstly, I can see how this might be good for the economy. By penalizing exit from the city area, more people would ostensibly be "persuaded" to remain in the town area or better yet have their dinner in town thereby fueling the retail and f&b scene. Just a hypothesis.... but I do know that hungry people have to eat and they will not wait till past 8.
But how about this whole work life balance shit they were sprouting not too long back? Time spent in town is time away from the family. So much for having close knit multi generational homes. In a perverse way, this is a tax placed on the family dinner. If you want to have dinner with your family, you pay the price. Or you can wait la, but don't blame us if grandma gets ulcers... though if she does, then you can thank us for medisave in an election year.
Suffice to say, I think the gantry will not solve any problem and will instead create one far worst at least in the short run. The problem I have is that it is such an elementary conclusion, it could not have escaped the planners who so happily put the gantry at its current location. This is troubling and I will tell you why later.
The gantry comes after the moulmein exit, so this means that to avoid paying, all one has to do is exit at moulmein. Stroke of genius yeah? So this means that the already crowded Thomson/Novena area is set to become impassable or worst because of the regulating traffic lights. Lets just say I'm glad I don't stay there. And this is where it gets sinister...
There is no way this could have been overlooked and it says to me that a second gantry is hiding somewhere in the recesses of someone's bowels waiting to be expurged on us again... probably at moulmein, if it is not already there. The jusitfication? Because of the jams in the Thomson area. Well done....
Anyway, I suppose that I should not be surprised, such ham-fisted high handedness is nothing new. And I reckon as we celebrate our nation's 40th birthday, we should all realise that we have had 40 years of getting used to rolling over and playing dead.
Frisbee anyone?
So like a good hardy Singaporean, I will learn to enjoy what I cannot avoid. I have decided thus to name the new gantry, this way the next time I am beeped, at least I can say hello back yeah?
Or maybe on a whim I can drive down to town and back and pretend I am a submarine commander getting pinged (At least 4 times since I live in Seletar). This will be good because I will then be able to film the Hunt for Red October (SG Edition) for cheap in my Uncle's old Hyundai. On a good rainy day I can actually get some rain in.
Good lobang for digicams anyone? Happy National Day
Like alot of things in Singapore, the new gantry appeared out of nowhere one day. Ok, maybe it was sitting inside some bureaucrats asshole until it was ready to be sprung on the driving populace. But anyway, from day one, I knew love was not meant to be. The bleddy thing almost caused an accident because the idiots infront of me slowed down to see it...
"Wah.... new gantry...."
Like fucking moths to the flame I reckon. I was surprised though that no grassroots types were there "spit shining" the pole since it was the latest thing out from the government.
"Wah sir, your gantry erect so fast, so hard and so accurate. And by the way ah, can you helps my son get into the gifted steam?"
Oh well, I'm so glad it will solve the traffic situation though, after all surely by charging us motorists money, we will not use the roads during the said timing. Go figure...
The communists would just have instituted a curfew, clean and simple. Travel between 6 to 8 and one of your children dies but not before we take your pigs and chickens. But nooo, since we are a market society, we need to apply market mechanisms hence this ultra sophisticated approach of hitting our wallets which would surely work. My ass it will! I think the scheme is as likely to work as I do of becoming skinny.
But just for once I would like to get into the minds of the policy folk. How does this fit into the grand scheme of things?
Firstly, I can see how this might be good for the economy. By penalizing exit from the city area, more people would ostensibly be "persuaded" to remain in the town area or better yet have their dinner in town thereby fueling the retail and f&b scene. Just a hypothesis.... but I do know that hungry people have to eat and they will not wait till past 8.
But how about this whole work life balance shit they were sprouting not too long back? Time spent in town is time away from the family. So much for having close knit multi generational homes. In a perverse way, this is a tax placed on the family dinner. If you want to have dinner with your family, you pay the price. Or you can wait la, but don't blame us if grandma gets ulcers... though if she does, then you can thank us for medisave in an election year.
Suffice to say, I think the gantry will not solve any problem and will instead create one far worst at least in the short run. The problem I have is that it is such an elementary conclusion, it could not have escaped the planners who so happily put the gantry at its current location. This is troubling and I will tell you why later.
The gantry comes after the moulmein exit, so this means that to avoid paying, all one has to do is exit at moulmein. Stroke of genius yeah? So this means that the already crowded Thomson/Novena area is set to become impassable or worst because of the regulating traffic lights. Lets just say I'm glad I don't stay there. And this is where it gets sinister...
There is no way this could have been overlooked and it says to me that a second gantry is hiding somewhere in the recesses of someone's bowels waiting to be expurged on us again... probably at moulmein, if it is not already there. The jusitfication? Because of the jams in the Thomson area. Well done....
Anyway, I suppose that I should not be surprised, such ham-fisted high handedness is nothing new. And I reckon as we celebrate our nation's 40th birthday, we should all realise that we have had 40 years of getting used to rolling over and playing dead.
Frisbee anyone?
So like a good hardy Singaporean, I will learn to enjoy what I cannot avoid. I have decided thus to name the new gantry, this way the next time I am beeped, at least I can say hello back yeah?
Or maybe on a whim I can drive down to town and back and pretend I am a submarine commander getting pinged (At least 4 times since I live in Seletar). This will be good because I will then be able to film the Hunt for Red October (SG Edition) for cheap in my Uncle's old Hyundai. On a good rainy day I can actually get some rain in.
Good lobang for digicams anyone? Happy National Day
posted by Shininggoat at 12:33 AM
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