More steps will be taken to make buses ‘kings of the road’

SINGAPORE — The Government wants to make buses the “kings of the road” and will extend priority measures — such as full-day bus lanes and the Mandatory Give Way to Buses scheme — to more roads, said Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew yesterday.

But to do this, something has to give — and this is partly why the authorities are lukewarm to the idea of having dedicated cycling lanes, which have been created in many cities that have successfully weaned their populations off cars.

“This is another one of the trade-offs that we have to make in terms of space,” he said in an interview with TODAY. To him, it is safer to keep cyclists off the roads, but they should also be segregated from pedestrians. “Not necessarily to have physical separation, but clear demarcation, so that you minimise the incidental conflict between the different groups of users,” he said.

Mr Lui felt that most motorists here “try to give as wide a berth for cyclists as possible”. But while a safety distance of 1.5m could be sufficient for an experienced cyclist, it might not be so for an inexperienced one “who is wobbly on his bike”, Mr Lui noted.

“If I can widen the roads by another 1.5m, am I actually better off moving that space off the road? Those are the questions we have to answer,” he said, adding that not all solutions used by cities around the world can be applied to Singapore.

Nevertheless, Mr Lui stressed that it was important to improve the infrastructure for people to cycle and walk. “For public transport to work well, you have to look at the first- and last-mile connectivity,” he said.

The Government has been building more covered walkways so that people can walk to MRT stations, bus interchanges and amenities in their estates. To date, it has built 50km of covered walkways across the island. This will be quadrupled by 2018. Dedicated cycling paths have also been completed in four towns — Tampines, Sembawang, Pasir Ris and Yishun. Over the next five years, 11 more towns will join the list.

By 2030, every HDB town will have a “comprehensive cycling path network and accompanying infrastructure”, said the Ministry of Transport (MOT). The islandwide off-road cycling path network will then be more than 700km long. Ang Mo Kio has been identified to become the “model walking and cycling town”. Commuters can also look forward to bicycle-sharing pilots in Jurong Lake District, Marina Bay city centre, Tampines and Pasir Ris, the MOT added.

Mr Lui also revealed that the authorities had considered trams as an alternative public transport option. But in the end, they were left unconvinced, he said. Compared to an MRT system, the value proposition of running trams in terms of capacity is “not quite there”, Mr Lui said. Trams also are less flexible than buses, for which routes can be tweaked more easily, he added. Singapore’s limited land is another factor.

“Are we prepared to devote two or three lanes worth (of road space for trams) ... to the exclusion of cars and all other vehicles?” Mr Lui asked. “If we had no constraints on land and space, I would look at it differently.” LOH CHEE KONG