Singapore’s $200,000 Toyotas Fuel Angst Over Widening Wealth Gap
(www.bloomberg.com)
from fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 29 Jan 2024 08:15
https://lemmy.world/post/11319888
from fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 29 Jan 2024 08:15
https://lemmy.world/post/11319888
#world
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Anyone have a non-paywalled link?
I gotcha fam:
archive.ph/JNQXL
Cheers!
Going forward, put any paywall url into archive.ph and you should be good.
The hero we need.
Even the article acknowledges that “The city-state has excellent public transport links by bus and subway”. Clearly the city realizes they are running out of space and want to prioritize people over cars. The remark at the end - " your own family comes first" - just ends up sounding selfish and anti-social.
It does suck that it caters to the rich rather than the needy but taxation is just how you deincentivise certain behaviors in a capitalist society. Hopefully Singapore counters this with subsidized special transport for the handicapped and elderly.
MRT Fares (as of 26 December 2021)
Adult $0.95 - $2.21. Senior citizen / Persons with disabilities - $0.60 - $0.93 Student - $0.43 - $0.64.
Workfare transport Concession - $0.69 - $1.73.
Children under the age of 4 and below the height of 0.9m travels for free. Children under the age of 7 can travel for free using a child concession card.
The remark at the end - " your own family comes first" - just ends up sounding selfish and anti-social.American media introducing American values in their analysis of the situation of a completely different country? No!
What’s funny too is that if American culture didn’t spread all over the world, the car culture and want for a car would probably be close to non existent in countries like Singapore. It’s a very small country that’s extremely dense, it doesn’t make much sense to want a car when you’ve got nowhere to put it anyway.
A system where only the rich have cars and everybody else gets around with good public transport is certainly suboptimal. But it’s still far better than being completely choked with cars like many other Asian cities.
Sounds pretty optimal to me… but it’d be nice if the rich people didn’t have cars either.
Barcelona manages just fine with a minimal amount of cars.
Not having to drive and having competent and plentiful public transit or walkable necessities sounds like a dream come true.
I’ve been to Singapore. You would have to pave every square inch of the island just store all the vehicles if everyone owned a car. The problem isn’t that cars are too expensive: it’s that the government pussy-footed around the issue and soft-banned vehicles through high fees rather than the more equitable approach of outright banning them for most private use. It’s like the saying: if the only punishment for breaking a law is a fine, then that law only applies to the poor.
Being a dense city and tiny island, life would be much improved for everyone if vehicle ownership and use were limited to businesses/workers that can demonstrate a work-related need for a vehicle, taxis, and people with disabilities that prevent them from utilizing public transit and/or taxis.