Updated 20 Dec 2012: Realised I missed out mentioning out how to keep the COE prices high
Before anyone shoots me for this subject title, I will like to highlight that this is backed up by facts. At least according to the article that I've read.
The reasoning is quite simple. You should have encountered traffic jams in Singapore almost everyday, and while you're in a traffic jam, your car is still burning litres of petrol even though you're stuck, and the car may not be moving at all. Do you know that burning 400 litres of fuel is equivalent to each megawatt that a coal plant that runs for an hour generates, assuming an average of 2.5kg of CO2 output is generated per litre of fuel? Now consider this: An entire city paralysed in traffic gridlock may exceed 40,000 litres of petrol burned every hour. So how much CO2 are you polluting the air in a traffic jam?
You're actually better off building coal plants to generate electricity than to let traffic jams happen in your city. I don't see many people voicing concerns over traffic jams because I don't think they see the problem of the CO2 generation when the car engine is running, even though it may not be moving.
So logically, to reduce the car population in Singapore, the COE prices will have to remain high to prevent the car population from going too high, most probably through gradually reducing the number of COEs until Singapore can afford to increase the road capacity. I feel that the carbon rebate that the government is initiating is good for the environment. This I feel is a form of reverse tax to those cars that are cheap, but pollutive to the environment.
For the betterment of Earth, I think we must try to reduce the CO2 emissions that we generate everyday. Every little bit helps.
4 comments:
In the past, I've always enjoyed driving on weekends as the traffic was usually light. Nowadays, I find it rather stressful due to the heavy traffic. I put the congestion on our roads to the overly lax and indiscrimate immigration policy of the government that resulted in a rapid increase in the resident population of Singapore.
and I suppose the number of non citizens bidding for coes do not affect the price? nor do the number of wealthy idiots owning more than a car?
Actually the number of COEs and hence the number of cars is fixed.regardless of price of COE. Higher COE does not mean less cars.
Hmm, thanks for your comments. I realised that I missed out typing the part that to keep the COE high, you will need to gradually reduce the number of COEs available. That is the only way to reduce the gridlock happening every day.
Not all non-citizens are rich and it does not explain the hike in COEs for cars below 1600cc.
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