I think that many asian cities have the right approach here. Treat cars as a luxury good in a space-challenged context and tax them heavily, while making sure to provide a world class public transport system so as to guarantee no-one actually <i>needs</i> a car.<p>While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfront cost but good luck getting a car park for less than $500/m - and you'll have to prove you have one to register the car. Adds up to about the same amount.<p>I live 100m from a train station with 2 lines, automated trains come every 3-4 minutes, 8 minutes to my workplace. Bike share outside my door. 3 supermarkets and hundreds of shops within walking distance. If absolutely necessary, there's Uber or grab. You don't need a car here. It's a luxury for the rich, and that's pretty much as it should be IMO.
Lee Kuan Yew actually thought, almost a decade ago, that he didn't go far enough:<p><i>“I knew that once people in Singapore could have a car, they’d never give it up. So, before it got out of control, I said you need a Certificate Of Entitlement before a car is yours; and the permitted up-tick in number of cars depends on what the road capacity is. That was the first move. So, you bid for it. If you issue more entitlement certificates than is prudent, roads are jammed. Then a younger generation took over and says, well, why not have more cars and we charge them by the usage on the roads instead of just purchase? I told them, okay, okay, have a car, have more cars! But once you’ve got a car, you will never give it up.” [...]</i><p><i>“I was moved on policy-thinking about transit by psychology. They are moved by maximizing road space. Okay, then you would antagonize more motorists. I would rather have less cars and get everybody to use the public transport, but a younger generation thinks this is the way to go and you are in charge, then go for more cars.”</i><p>I remember being in LA in the 2000s, and not renting a car (the innocence of growing up in Europe...). I sampled the buses that took 1.5 hours to go from Beverly Hills to Downtown. I paid $200 for a return cab ride from Santa Monica to Hollywood at rush hour.<p>In comparison, if the MRT has a 30 minute delay in Singapore it is national news [2].<p>[1] Tom Plate, Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew-Singapore/dp/9814677612" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew-Singapore/...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/commuters-hit-by-train-delays-early-friday-morning" rel="nofollow">http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/commuters-hi...</a>
It is important to note that Singapore/HongKong have world class, reliable and reachable public transport. The MTR is heavenly. The population is concentrated in big, tall buildings. Not quite the "lifestyle" but I can see why banning cars is important here.<p>Given that the standard of living is high, pretty much everyone will be able to afford cars if they cost the real market price. This will make movement impossible even if the populace owned cars just for leisure use.
Amazing! This more than anything else seems so sci-fi to me. Reminds me of the Diamond Age somehow. In the US we have so much space we take for granted building a new road a new subdivision a new 5acre parking lot. Imagine if there was no more space. Cars now become a whole lot more of a questionable use of space.
This doesn't surprise me. Already they are trying to economically limit the number of cars there (as mentioned in the article). Singapore has an extremely efficient public transport system and a culture that already isn't highly dependant on cars so I don't see a massive social shift being in order to accomodate the plan.
I spent a week in the South of France recently and the first Sunday morning I was sitting outside and this whisper of a train came by. No horns, whistles, smoke, noise. The service runs the coast every 30 mins. I thought about this joke service here in the Boston area and realized that we'll never have this in the USA; not this side of the Civil War 2 anyway.
I think it's overall a good move, given 12% of their land is used up by transport networks and it's a tiny island.<p>That said, if space is a real constraint, I think they could make a deal with Malaysia, if they really needed to, but I think their independent streak is too strong to allow that thought --they once were part of it, pre-independence. On the other hand there are "autonomous" regions out there.<p>The question[1] has been considered in some circles, although more fantasy than anything else due to enormous, maybe insurmountable, cultural and ethnic differences. One is Sinetic the other Malay --and in the past lead to some terrible ethnic riots.<p>[1]<a href="https://www.quora.com/What-if-Singapore-combines-with-Malaysia-again" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/What-if-Singapore-combines-with-Malays...</a>
I never really understood why governments insist on restricting vehicles and not access to roads. It seems like the scarce resource is efficient road access, not space for cars (even in sg, where there's not a whole lot of that either).
The headline is technically incorrect. Cars will still be added as long as an equal number of cars are removed.<p>Bloomberg has also updated its headline to read: "Singapore Will Stop Increasing Car Numbers From February 2018"
For small cities with the privilege of topography, it's ok. For cities with population more than 1M+ and heavily complicated topography, it's delusional.
This is a complicated topic. Here is one example line of thought:<p>1. Wow, all of these cars are annoying -- let's restrict them<p>2. But, rich people own these cars, and many of them drive into the city to spend money, which pays the workers<p>3. We all agree traffic is annoying, so those rich people sure must prefer to drive their cars<p>4. Hmmm, what will happen if we punish/tax/regulate their cars? Possible they'll stop coming into the city?<p>5. If that happens, what happens to the workers?<p>My primary point is that it's easy to say, "these cars suck, so let's tax them" without thinking through all of the ramifications.