Light rail opening in Singapore (Sengkang/Punggol towns)
Today, Sat 29 Jan 2005 is the opening day for the Sengkang West Loop and Punggol East Loop LRT lines. Here are some of the photos taken :




The entire photo gallery is here :
http://www.post1.net/jGallery/images/20050129-sengkang-west-punggol-lrt/index.html

Scans of the brochures that were handed out :



Some opening day impressions - not that much of a crowd as the initial opening a couple of years ago - back then when the Sengkang East Loop was only the second LRT system ever in Singapore, they were queuing up outside the station just to get in. Today, the longer queue was actually at the basement of the Compass Point shopping mall to redeem free $5 Metro vouchers. People were queuing for 1-2 hours for their vouchers. Hey, when free money (or equivalent) is being given out, who wouldn't want that?

One thing I noticed was that the ride was a little bit bumpier than before. What do I know, since I generally don't need to take the LRT since I live just across the road from the town centre.

All in all, it's going to be a good thing for the residents of the remote south-western corners of Sengkang West, and for Punggol residents.

Deeper thoughts :

1. Suburbia - Jim Kunstler has been ranting about American suburbia. There are also people arguing for putting in rail systems and high-rise apartments. Well here you are, a real-life implementation with light rail overhead, heavy rail underground, and nothing but high-rise HDB apartment buildings. Is Singapore-style suburbia any better? Sure, we use less land per person but there had better not be any blackouts, because the lifts and the rail systems are powered by electricity. And, like our American counterparts, we too are at the end of very long supply lines.

2. Economics - the routes that are operating now can hardly be considered economical, with stations un-opened, and the estates only a fraction of the planned size, and hence a much lower ridership per day than originally envisioned. Despite the hopes of the pseudo-anarchists and some "leave-it-to-the-market" economists, some government intervention is still needed especially for public infrastructure.

3. Convenience - which may be slightly over-rated because a. the LRT stations are spaced further apart than the equivalent bus stops would have been, b. the stations are on elevated tracks about 3 floors up, you either climb stairs or squeeze in tiny lifts (actually meant for handicapped) c. the residents living along the routes are adequately served but not those living further away from the stations (and in between the railway loops).

4. "Growth" - or the lack thereof. In the photo gallery you will see how planning for "growth" can run into problems when the expected growth does not happen. Sengkang is fairly developed especially in the eastern and central part (where I live), but the western part is another story (re: railway in the middle of nowhere). Punggol has had it worse - the eastern part was built up but development practically halted just short of the central section, which means that they do not have a fully functional town centre.

(2005-01-29 21:58:25 SGT) [Tech] # Comments [0]

http://www.post1.net/page/lowem/2005012 ... rt_opening

Very interesting Lowem,

I spent only a very limited time in Singapore back in 1998, so its interesting to see what has transpired in that well thought-out city. For me as an up-and-coming planner in school, I was pretty amazed with what the Singapore govt could get away with doing. The model of develoment is vastly different than ours here in the US.

Here are my thoughts, pre-peak-oil:

Singapore's (actually most Asian cities for that matter) decision to promote or foster the development of extremely high density apartment blocks instead of allowing horizontal growth, a la the US was extremely positive. Clustering the development in a small area in my mind is a more efficient use of land than haphazard sprawl with all of the attendant infrastructure costs. Infrastructure costs for a variety of things from road networks to electrical, sewage, water, police, fire etc are of course, lower per unit. It just simply costs less when you cover fewer square kilometers. I also thought the Singaporean ideas of peak time car metering and selling/auctioning the right to drive were pretty novel and effective. Personally I have always liked big, vibrant cities and by letting them get large you can have a very diverse selection of people and ideas in close quarters. The new mass-built blocks are quite bland on first appearance but over time I would expect all of those neighborhoods to eventually take on some character.

Question: Do some or all of the average apartment block towers contain commercial establishments on the ground floor? More generally on the street level, are there sidewalks and store fronts? I had seen new developments in China and Malaysia that encorporated the street front element as well as those that did not. Here in the US we had a bad experiement in the 1950s and 60s with public housing towers that had no connection to the street network, existing construction or even other towers. They were awfully built, poorly maintained and a resounding failure. Unfortunately it tainted the average american's opinion of public housing complexes in general.

In my mind the further one moves away from Le Corbusier's grand visions of high density living, the better these complexes are or will be.

Post Peak:

Now, this model of development concerns me. I do not know what would be worse, an endless series of apartment towers or a sprawling mess of disconnected US suburbia. You are right about the supply lines though, modern big cities exist thanks to an incredible support system that can range several hundred to amazingly enough, several thousand miles in distance. Food and water come immediately to mind. Here in the US our food production industry is so hyper-organized and industrialized there exists an almost technical precision to what foods get stocked in what cities in whatever amounts. Food comes from wherever it is available at that momement from whoever can supply the largest crops at the lowest prices. As a result an average American dinner came from 1300 miles away. (I do a little better as I live in the massive Central Valley and can get bulk of my foods from local growers). I do not know where food originates in Singapore, but my guess is most is NOT home grown (WHERE??). When I was in Gungdong (?) Prov. of China, I did get to see that close agglomeration of urban and near-urban farm operations near the big cities so I can see that some countries or regions can get some of their food closeby. Water is likewise important, and here in the western US the large urban areas have water tentacles (canals) radiating hundreds of miles simply to meet their needs. The bottom line is that these urban areas all exist beyond their local carrying capacity.

And thats before we talk about energy! The bottom line is my opinion of the modern urban life is that it is ultimately doomed. Over the long haul, I do not see how we can continue to keep these places propped up and in existance in the face of a shrinking energy supply. Ultimately we need to shrink our lives back to a village oriented setup. Human existance throughout history largely follows such a pattern and any settlements that can sustain themselves on locally available resources are the ones you want to be in.

Not 30 story apartment blocks.
Not a 30 acre housing tracts with exclusionary zoning.

I have already gone on the record about my skepticism about the viability of Suburbia USA. I will postulate that Suburbia Singapore will not be pretty either. If the government can take further control and allocate dwindling resources to the maintenance of existing infrastructure, the decline may be managed. If those empty green areas are pressed into intensive raised bed agriculture and every last rooftop contained water harvesting, solar panels or gardens the decline may be survivable. If Singapore can get along with Malaysia or not be overrun by some other hostile force, the decline may be pleasant. But in the end, the declining economy will render many types of employment useless, while at the same time increasing the demand for more labor in previously automated professions such as textiles, farming, or manufacture. The shift back to manual labor especially in farming will reduce the number of people that need to live in the city as more rural areas will gain in population. In the end though, I cannot see Singapore remotely resembling its peak form. It just wouldn't make any sense.

People were pushed to the cities by the advent of cheap energy. The end of cheap energy will drive them away.

Computer-controlled, no driver.
http://www.post1.net/jGallery/images/20 ... 0031a.html

I suppose we have elevators that are the same way.

Thanks for the detailed reply, patrickjford.

I've just got an email reply to a question I posed to Jim Kunstler, the guy you saw in the "End of Suburbia" DVD.

My question was : "... is the super-dense vertical suburbia where I live (Singapore, over 6000 people/sq km) any better or worse than America's horizontal suburban sprawl?"

Haven't got his say-so to post his reply in its entirety, but here are the main points :

1. Any building over 7 storeys is a product of cheap energy.
2. Paris and London are doing just fine with the low buildings they have.
3. The developed nations will have a problem with their electric grids ahead.
4. That's not too good for cities with tall buildings like New York City (and I suppose, Singapore too).

I will try to answer your questions and so on :



They could get away with most of their policies because it is a semi-authoritarian type of government. There is a lot of top-down planning here, much of it done by people who got government scholarships who were then sent all over the world to pick up ideas from other more developed countries.

There will be instant revolts in many democractic countries if they try to suddenly shove down the concepts of car COE's (auction for a "Certificate of Entitlement" to have the *right* to own a car), or ERP (Electronic Road Pricing, pass a gantry at certain times, *beep* and your money is deducted wirelessly from your cash card via an in-car device).



They built plain, dull, colourless-looking apartment blocks which all looked exactly the same in the initial building rush in the 1960's and 1970's. Today they have more varied designs, such that every other block or so is just a little bit different, and instead of 1 type of uniform apartment type, you have several to choose from.



That's an evolving thing, but generally, yes, there are usually a number of shops available within walking distance.

In older estates, for every 5 blocks or so, there will be 1 special block with a row of shops on the ground floor. There will be at least 1 grocery shop (sometimes 2), and 1 eating place ("kopitiam", or local coffeeshop). These shops may include a doctor's clinic (GP), a dentist, a barber, a stationery shop, a bakery, bank branch and so on. Not all "special" blocks have all of these shop types, but most will have at least one grocery shop and one "kopitiam".

In newer estates like the one where I stay, they got rid of the "special" block concept, and instead built "commercial clusters", which are either nestled at the ground floor of the multi-storey carpark buildings, or are dedicated commercial blocks with a row of shops. The granularity is much less refined - translation, if you don't stay near one, you may have to walk quite a bit further.

The town/estate where I stay, Sengkang, was planned around the LRT routes. It is divided into 6 regions, each of which has its own commercial cluster. I stay at the "town centre" one, which is the largest and right in the middle of the housing estate.

How far to get a loaf of bread? For me, I just have to walk 5 minutes, maybe a little less. Those staying further may have to walk 10-15 minutes, or they can go get a bicycle, which is quite popular around here as well.

The lazy ones will go ride their fossil-burning cars but it is "dangerous" for them as they have to be careful not to get busted for "illegal parking" - you practically have to pay nearly everywhere you stop your car.



Exactly, that's one of the top 10 questions I always think of. I have a hunch, especially after mailing Jim Kunstler, that each type will have their own set of problems.

For America's horizontal suburbia, they will have huge problems if they lose the use of their "legs" - their cars, that is. There are no shops within walking distance.

For vertical suburbia like New York, Singapore, etc. the problem will be power outages and people who live above, say the 7th floor are screwed, and any elderly citizens, wheelchair-bound, etc. who live anywhere above ground floor are, unfortunately, screwed too.



Rice from Thailand and northern Malaysia, vegetables, eggs, poultry, pork from Malaysia, dairy products (milk, beef, cheese, butter, margarine) from Australia and New Zealand. The local farming industry is tiny and provides only a small fraction of the eggs and vegetables consumed daily.

There *are* some green areas reserved for military use (jungle training, live firing areas, army camps, etc) and some are simply marked off as state land, undeveloped. If push comes to shove, some of these might be turned to agriculture, but it won't be enough. But there are no rice fields (staple Asian food) and not likely to be any (need a lot of land and water).

Water is provided from Johor, the southern-most state of neighbouring Malaysia, at their good grace. But now that they are having their own water shortage problems due to adverse weather (climate change?), this may be going to be an area of contention if not conflict in the future. Whenever relations are strained, the cry of "cut off their water" always goes up.

But with the many people who have relatives on both sides, I sure hope we don't have a shooting war and have to face our own cousins and nephews and uncles on the other side of the gun, and vice versa.



Thanks for your comments. That's roughly my gut feel as well, it'll be different problems from American suburbia, just not sure whether it'll turn out to be any better or any worse.

Ok I've got permission from Jim Kunstler to re-post this :

Peak Oil turned up on a Singapore newspaper today. The newspaper, incidentally, is called "Today" and has a circulation of 300,000 copies daily.

It's a re-print of the Guardian article that I blogged on just a couple of days back.

The article takes up a full page on Page 6 (see PDF).

(2005-04-23 08:06:32 SGT) [Energy] # Comments [0]

http://www.post1.net/page/lowem/2005042 ... _newspaper

Happy Peak Oil, Singapore (Temasek).
It is show time. A mini natural gas shortage will results in electricity blackout like what happens in 2004.

Maybe you can use some portion of your income to buy land in Malaysia.
You can use your wife's name to acquire some land in Melaka without any red tape. When TSHTF , your family can run there unless you have means to stay safe and sound in R&D research facility with your love ones.

That's one bug-out scenario, yup - buy some place in Malacca (/Melaka) and put that on stand-by. But I'm not ready to sell my current place yet and that means there's a chunk of money tied up in this tiny apartment flat here in Singapore. Yup I know if I sell this, I can buy some freehold semi-D or bungalow-type house with a plot of land right away and probably have some change left.

Other people asked me, or are actually themselves planning, to go New Zealand, Australia, or some such.

But the "rot starts at the edges" theory still bugs me. So it not only depends on the timing and speed of the crash/decline/collapse, it also depends on the *model* - Roman? Byzantine? Mayan? Or, *gulp*, Easter Island??!

Oh, and BR, you're making it sound like I work at one of those Resident Evil or DOOM-type facilities, lol. Nah, it's software only. There won't be any marines, or shotguns, chain-guns conveniently lying around. There most likely won't be rocket launchers left in some dark corridor, and the likelihood of there being a BFG-9000 sitting on a shelf somewhere is somewhat remote

*shrug* the "Resident Evil" scenario ("T-virus", oooh) is if anything more likely in the biotech buildings they've been setting up than the software place I'll be in. We'll only be churning out Java source code. Therefore, "mostly harmless" - "dun panic"

Seriously though, I don't really know about .my as bug-out. From a total footprint point of view, you guys barely break even (*just* about 1:1). Much better than Singapore's 7:1 overshoot, to be sure. But of course there're many factors - West vs East Malaysia, rural vs urban - let's say KL vs northern Kedah.

lowem, if you plan on getting a place in Melaka state, anywhere would be fine except in Melaka Town itself. Despite the word "town", urban + suburban development is sky-high, and the traffic jams are already starting to resemble those of KL.

What's a total footprint point of view?

Nobody knows how Peak Oil will affect industrial civilization. However, we knew that all those doomed civilizations are solar civilization. The main source of energy besides some poor slaves is the "Sun God" itself. However, nowadays we depend on 'Petroleum God''. I really don't know what will happen in Singapore when TSHTF.

However, I can tell you what happen in Borneo now (April 25 2004 A.D.) Currently Sarawak is facing massive diesel shortage. Yes, that's right no diesel. In Sarawak capital, Kuching almost all petrol stations have no diesel at all . According to one of the worker there, any allocation of diesel will be used up in 2 hours. If you don't queue up at that time, don't expect to buy any diesel at all.

[URL=http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/4/25/nation/10777932&sec=nation]
Diesel Crisis[/URL]

[Happen now]
Due to the diesel crisis, public transportation schedules are cut and massive traffic jam occurred as petrol powered vehicles such as cars,SUV and motorcycles filled the road .

[Forecast]
So more petrol are used and sooner or later petrol crisis will occured and it will paralysed the capital.According to rough estimate, a total of 24 stalled cars can paralysed the city. How you tow the damned cars away when the whole road is jammed like hell. Heavy duty helicopter ??

So ,it doesn't matter what model it follows. The problem of oil depletion in Borneo is obvious and I will update until I got stuck in one of those jams and a fire breaks out.



Oh, it is not my real intention to scare you with so-call prediction since everyone here is Cassandra and they know what will hapeens next. It will scared you like hell when you drive around town and see 'No diesel' in every petrol stations.

'Resident Evil' not even scary enough. At least all of them turned into mindless zombies chanting "We want blood". We are dealing with intelligent, angry and kicking human here chanting "We want oil"

Neither do I. That's why I'm been scratching my head as to what the agenda is when the government allowed such an article to be printed on hard copy media like "Today".

One thing is for sure : with the current population density with negative self-sufficiency and tons of really desperately hungry people in multiple high-packed high-rise residential areas bodes extremely terrible, compared to having a fighting chance of either a dig-in / bug-out scenario. Choices here are zero. No capacity to produce anything (food, energy), no access to resources, no place to run.....I'm going mad here!

Lowem, rot starting from the edges? *sigh* At least we can start to study that. I'm still hoping for a Terminus-like scenario........

I think it's referring to how much a unit of land can support per person. E.g. A hectare of land of a fixed amount of arable land and a certain portion being mine-able(sp?) with so-much resources (water, wind). Tons of equations later, you get a total footprint of a certain city/area/country. E.g. Finland average is 3.34:1 hectare:human. On earth, average is 2-3:1.

Even if I'm wrong, and yet I apply a 1:7 to Singapore, I will not be surprised.

Wait a minute guys. Lowem : PR and/or citizenship-wise, assuming that your wife does purchase a piece of land in .my, does that mean you can stay as long as possible without a PR/citizenship? Or are you bounded by other contraints?

Then again, PO-wise, will such paper requirements stilll stand when the government is on the brink of falling apart WTSHTF?