
Singapore: no more cars allowed on the road, government says - t1o5
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/singapore-no-more-cars-allowed-on-the-road-government-says
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merricksb
Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15536481](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15536481)

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EGreg
I find it interesting that Singapore ranks very high on the "Economic Freedom"
(read: business friendliness) indexes but is for sure a nanny state, that
fines you for chewing gum on the street and so on.

Libertarians use it as an example of prosperity resulting from freedom but
there is heavy intervention and central planning everywhere. How do they
explain the thiving in the face of this?

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ciguy
They don't and never have fined anyone for chewing gum. Just the sale and
import of gum are banned. You can go to another country and bring back gum for
personal use, though doing so may be of dubious legality. I know plenty of
friends that have done so many times with no issues.

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EGreg
You're right, I accidentally conflated it with spitting out gum:

It is illegal to drop litter, and to “spit any substance or expel mucus from
the nose upon or on to any street or any public place”. Penalties for a first
offence can be as much as S$2,000, or S$10,000 for doing it three times. In
both cases you may also be forced to clean the streets wearing a green vest.

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ciguy
This is very much a problem in many parts of Asia. Whether there should be a
law against it is debatable, but I can absolutely understand why something
like this would be on the books. I find spitting and blowing your nose onto
the street pretty revolting personally, so I don't have a problem with laws
like this.

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cs702
Interesting.

The economic and environmental rationales are compelling.

After reading this, I'm wondering if the prohibition of private vehicles will
be unavoidable in the future for large, densely populated areas with growing
populations.

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holydude
Places like Singapore are an isolated incidents. They have nowhere else to
grow (unless they want to reclaim land from the ocean sort of what seoulites
did with Songdo).

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xbmcuser
If I recall correctly Singapore has increased it's landmass by about 20% in 50
or so years by reclaiming land from the sea. I have to say though they have
plans that by 2030 no place should be more than 10-15min walk from an mrt
station and have been trialing different kinds of self driving tech for the
last mile travel. I expect in 10 years they might actually get to a point
where owning a car might not be worth the hassle.

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holydude
I would say in most of the cities that are like Singapore owning a car is a
hassle. The point is you cannot replicate Singapore. Take Seoul for example
with its massive and well maintained infrastructure. The city despite the
similar population density is just too big to efficiently cover all its
corners by public infrastructure. Sure this will work for "poor" (loose
definition of poor i am talking about people that can afford to own a car but
prefer not to because it would perhaps eat to much of their budget) that can
or have to cope with the public mrt but will not work for 70% (number out of
my ass) of other citizens.

The solution is clearly a better urban planning, perhaps some limits to the
size of the cities etc.

