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Tuesday, March 03, 2009
[/rant_mode on]
I need to rant.
I left the office late today. I won't be in office tomorrow, so I had to finish something which was needed by my colleague on Thursday.
By the time I left, traffic was horrid. Public transport was shit. I'm still unhappy about it, but I no longer get as worked up as I was in the past. Until today. Our world-class public transport system gave me something else to get pissed about.
I got on the LRT at CCK at about 7:30pm. At 8pm, I was at Keat Hong. Two stations away from CCK. Why? Because the LRT's fucked. Again.
An insane number of people take the LRT during peak hours. The insanity of it all is increased when you see how small the LRT train really is. To their credit, they realised that demand exceeded supply so they increased the number of trains during peak hours. But the design of the tracks at CCK was such that if the incoming train hasn't reached the station, the one at the station can't leave. This means a much longer waiting time - the train would arrive at the station, and wait for the next train to arrive (on the other platform) before moving off.
That's not the only choke-point. There's one more at Phoenix. It is due to a somewhat-similar problem as CCK, so I won't go into it. While they've tried to increase capacity, the LRT system itself could not support nor handle the additional demand.
There's actually a very simple solution to all this. Use double-carriage trains during peak hours. What's the use of sending out single-carriage trains? Double-carriage trains effectively double the capacity without any of the too-many-trains-on-the-track problem.
My wonderful solution aside, the trains today wouldn't move for some reason. I've traveled two stations in 25 minutes. I was fucking pissed. They finally decided to acknowledge the problem and made an announcement, but the guy on the PA system was mumbling the whole time and I had no idea what the hell he said. I got off and took a cab home instead.
I can't wait to get my own wheels. Then I would no longer have to put up with this crap. Granted, driving on Singapore's streets will probably give me high blood pressure and shorten my lifespan anyway, but at least I would be in control.
^^^ by Locksley @ 9:47 PM.
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