After taking the train to work this morning, I just felt the need to post this. In light of the recent breakdowns that have been plaguing the train services to this degree, what happened this morning really makes this unacceptable.
The train this morning during the morning peak is, as you'd guess, crowded as heck. Not only it was crowded, it was getting stuffy too. But it is because of overcrowding, a passenger a few feet from me fainted and collapsed onto the ground which I reckon it's partially attributed to claustrophobic-ness and getting sandwiched by the crowd). Whether any SMRT staff had any brains to tend to her after passengers have to carry her out of the train remains to be seen. But regardless, when you have such a population and such a heavy density, with the Govt even pushing for 6.9 Mill is absolutely insane! What they didn't think what may happen was the fact the transport and Singapore's infrastructure are stretched beyond its safe limits. The MRT is getting long in the tooth and they want to bring in more people to render the entire rail system completely and utterly useless.
And earlier this week, for the benefit of any of the Singapore readers living under a rock, 2 trains collided can causing injuries to 36 passengers. How for some reason God knows why the signalling system failed to prevent this from happening is beyond me. And even how SMRT let slip lapses for the flood that happened in the underground MRT tunnels is something we've not heard before. Day 01 Downtown Line screwed up, not long ago 2 workers died.... the rest I don't wanna think about.
If you really ask me, SMRT, its leadership, and any ministers that are directly or indirectly involved are literally just leaving us the passengers to fend for ourselves whenever the train breaks. For K Shanmugam to boast our 'World-class' transport system and demanding the public to get behind Khaw Boon Wan, I WILL NOT! It has been a whopping 3 years which has been too agonising for some to keep facing transport nightmares which has been way too long. And for too long I've lost confidence in their ability to manage such a critical aspect of the needs of the Citizens. For most of us including me, the train has been our primary means of travel and for some the ONLY means of travel. Sure our transit system cannot be like Japan's or Hong Kong's but this current standard is disgraceful.
And if they think their method to improve the system is to increase train fares is sensible, come on the govt and the ministries have so much money in their coffers, none of which is channeled to the betterment of the rail system. To make us wait till at least 2019 till the trains improve? Well, some of us will not live till this happens.
On the bottomline, after a few years of Khaw Boon Wan and Lieutenant General Desmond managing this sector for a while, it is clear now that they have been completely ineffective in their roles to make public transport better. In fact you can say under them, we've gone back to the Stone Age of Transport reliability. You introduce a lot of new stuff and in the end just doesn't work out well. In all straight it's time for them to pack their bags and move on.
If I were the president or Prime Minister or what, I'll sack you all straightaway!
