In light of the recent heated debate about the transport system in Singapore, I would like to share my experience with the bus service along Bukit Timah Road.
This afternoon [03 July], the overhead bridge at Sixth Avenue “collapsed”. The exact time I am unsure, but a cashier at the nearby Guthrie House Cold Storage informed me it was at about 1pm.
I had walked from Adam Road as the entire stretch of Bukit Timah Road until the Clementi Road entrance had been diverted. Despite the fact that bus captains patiently explained to every passenger [about the incident], the shocking fact remains that for about 6 hours, not a single person from the bus service notified the residents of Bukit Timah huddled under the bus stops, waiting futilely for buses to come in the rain.
While walking the few kilometres down, I encountered people who had waited even up to 2 hours. I also noted the presence of large groups of stranded construction workers, appearing to be waiting for some sort of service to send them back to their hostels. They cut very abject figures in the humid drizzle, with nothing to shelter them save their yellow safety helmets.
I think the entire experience casts a huge doubt over our public transport system’s ability to deal with “unforeseen circumstances”.
Although there was crisis management in the form of diverting traffic, the lack of accountability and communication just reeks of irresponsibility and ineptness to me. If the cashier is to be believed and the accident did happen at 1pm, well, it was 6:40pm when I finally reached my destination and there were large crowds at bus stops. In the near-six hours of crisis, it seems that some people did not respond critically.
As many of our core services in this country are publicly-owned (I use this term loosely), I do think that in such situations, mobile service providers could be mobilised and inform everybody in the country. The inconvenience and traffic jams from Whitley onwards to Eng Neo were horrific. I outran, rather, out-walked quite a number of cars.
As a commuter of buses, I think it also reveals many critical flaws in the design of the distance-payment system. I had to alight and walk for 3-4km along Bukit Timah Road, losing fare based on the system if I
took another bus that was still in service at the other end of the road. Should any part of Singapore have main roads with bus stops closed for repairs, I can imagine the loopholes in the system that adds insult upon injury to commuters.
11am to 7pm [as reported by the press]. What on earth were they doing? And the bridge did not collapse; it was crooked. I think they should have left it alone (or closed one lane) until midnight to attend to repairs.
I hope that my account may be of some use to your site and that it may help to keep the flame of discussion going. Thank you for your wonderful efforts with this website and I hope everything is well.
———–
The writer wishes to remain anonymous.
Picture from the Straits Times.
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AGAIN! , who the …. is accountable if not responsible???? ??? ???
HALLOOOOOO!??? Sinnnngggapporeeeeeannss?
Anyone left ?
I am sure its the Rain’s fault.
But anyone got filmed this on youtube or not? The SMRT one got citizen released footage no MSM have. Earlier and Faster, the citizen journalism way!
With the fast broadband and film device technology, wireless and all, we should fully exploit this area and make everyone more well informed.
INFORMATION is POWER!
Dun wait for slow or ‘news that was’.
correction , i mean there was one citizen who filmed the SMRT train leaving station with the paint still on and that was released to the public domain earlier than MSM.
The accident was reported to have occurred at 10.30am. The SMRT’s failure to react is all too glaring.
Well, at least nobody got hurt. Thank godness.
Must be PRC driver… which got kopi licence from Pro Alien’s Party relevant agency.
SBS and SMRT most probably think that you count as a customer only after you board the bus. If you’re standing at a bus stop, to them, you’re just that — someone standing at a bus stop owned by LTA, not them.
its unrealistic to install a public announcement system, but never too expensive for 1 that tracks all vehicles via GPS.
drivers are no less shortchanged when a major event is held on the roads. if drivers are charged for using them, shouldn’t drivers get rebates when some roads are off limits (marathons, F1, other “unforeseen circumstances” like floods, fallen trees)?
all due to no fault of drivers.
after finding no more excuse to the matter and still refusing to admit any mistake in crisis management, (11am-7pm), perhaps someone will come out and divert the argument with a straw-man argument claiming “we cannot expect singapore to be incident-free” perhaps?
No police to inform commuters waiting for more than 2 hours.
We know the police were busy opposition parties members for selling their papers
JW5 July 2010
No police to inform commuters waiting for more than 2 hours.
the polis at Bukit Timah NPC had to take transport to reach you to inform you, but due to the jam RIGHT at their doorstep they could not reach you to inform you.
so maybe they stayed in the office?
Strait Times only reported the matter in an academic way. In short … “IT HAPPENED”.
They should have a follow-up article like “What lessons can we learn from the incident? Do some interviews with bus passengers, drivers, shop keepers, etc. Have some depth in the reporting please.
I would say that those caught in the jam are very frustrated in those hours that they have been trapped. I think they rightfully deserve some explanation and assurance that better effort will be made in the future. It’s not too much to ask.
I was caught after making a turn from Adam Rd into Bt Timah Rd at about 5.45pm. There was not a single policeman or traffic police personel to explain the situation. Everyone was like a lemming, waiting to jump off the cliff. It was a PR disaster. I pity anybody who might have an emergency then, there was no way for an ambulance to get in or out.
11am to 7pm [as reported by the press]. What on earth were they doing? And the bridge did not collapse; it was crooked. I think they should have left it alone (or closed one lane) until midnight to attend to repairs.
……………..
i got no bloomin idea who the annoymouse writer is.. but just because it changed his/her plan of goin home..he/she suggest to hold on till the overhead collaped on some other innocents cars/bus/bangala lorry seaters perhaps?
this is THE typical attitute of our kiasu singapoorean who never think of OTHERs except themselves
~sigh~
I think sin never able to handle any big crisis. The way our ruler train their civil servant and glc. What more can we expect?
Cpt, 5 July 2010
maybe our civil service is mostly poly or uni grads, most are better(-er?) at paper work than hitting the ground doing real work?
we can expect replies through Mediacorpse to ultimately lay blame on the people yet again for not paying them enough, not being pro-active (enough) citizens, always complaining.
they expect the citizens to DIY repair the bridge? deal with floods, maybe even suicide bomber?
that is why more & more civil servants can sit back relax? got robber? how prepared are you to deal with it? got floods, dun wait for authorities to “rescue” you. DEAL WITH IT (yourself)!
world class!! XD
Yea, got stuck in the jam starting from Coronation Plaza, and no announcements over radio, whatsoever.
No police or traffic police in sight, all of the Singapore Police are good at eating snake, and in the process their
heads get big, fat pay, so fat that they refuse to leave their aicon office or car.
Shit to the SPF!
This is the land of the one family only.
It is unique