I think that many asian cities have the right approach here. Treat cars as a luxury good in a space-challenged context and tax them heavily, while making sure to provide a world class public transport system so as to guarantee no-one actually needs a car.
While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfront cost but good luck getting a car park for less than $500/m - and you'll have to prove you have one to register the car. Adds up to about the same amount.
I live 100m from a train station with 2 lines, automated trains come every 3-4 minutes, 8 minutes to my workplace. Bike share outside my door. 3 supermarkets and hundreds of shops within walking distance. If absolutely necessary, there's Uber or grab. You don't need a car here. It's a luxury for the rich, and that's pretty much as it should be IMO.
It's subtly different. The core idea is that car ownership has externalities and the implementation of solving these externalities is to limit absolute numbers and let the market decide what use to make of the quota. Luxury ownership is just one of many uses competing. Uber recently pushed prices up a bit [1] as it bought itself a rental fleet for its subsidiary Lion City Rentals; the ROI on these cars is worth more to Uber than what a citizen is prepared to pay to own a car.
A parallel might be real estate. Yes, you could run a warehouse in Wall Street, but even if you get the permits from the local planning association, you'll be outbid by the investment banks. There is even an example of "luxury" Wall Street real estate in the form of 23 Wall Street [2] which was "purposely designed to be only four stories tall" whilst surrounded by skyscrapers.
It is worth noting that the Singapore government actively works to reduce demand for cars, by increasing the quality and extent of public transport, making it accessible to all, and regulating the taxi and delivery industries carefully to enable them to be cheap and easily available. A COE-type scheme introduced in a city without high quality alternatives (such as Sydney or Los Angeles) would cause the immediate fall of the government responsible and a policy reversal from the newly elected replacement.
> A COE-type scheme introduced in a city without high quality alternatives (such as Sydney or Los Angeles) would cause the immediate fall of the government
Well of course. It's a huge undertaking which would have to be executed over a generation, which probably requires a level of bipartisan political maturity and commitment that NSW can't muster (talking about Sydney). It could certainly be done though, maybe not with a COE system but by some other method of gradually pushing people out of their cars and into an expanding public transport network.
I guess describing everything they could do would take a book, but a good first step would be getting rid of the ridiculous helmet laws so at least people could ride to the station if they want to, and provide japanese-style mass bike parking there. Then just slowly start increasing the tax on cars, petrol, parking and tolls while absolutely pouring money into infrastructure (not roads), stopping any further urban sprawl, and systematically rezoning towards higher density and walkability. In 25 years you could achieve a lot.
I agree though, not going to happen anytime soon. Things will have to get worse before they can get better.
People will resist giving up cars in areas with crappy weather, but I could see this working in many US cities west/south currently choked with traffic.
And people will claim crappy weather as an excuse almost completely independent of weather. The closest things to cities without any bad weather would have to be San Diego and Los Angeles, and the legions of cars there are just as endless as elsewhere.
The issue is that this only really works with small towns that are extremely densely populated. This falls short for much of the US whose towns are extremely spread out and sparsely populated.
Yes, the US has a problem with sprawling cities and suburbs, driving is part of the culture but it's a myth that it only works for small cities, one that I've seen repeated here and on reddit far too many times.
I was incorrect about Tokyo being small, but it is quite densely populated (>15k people/sq.mi. at 893 miles in sq area, hence a good candidate for pub trans) and in most examples of pub trans, the bigger its coverage area, the more expensive it becomes to maintain (and to use for its customers).
Also, the “problem” of sprawling cities isn’t a problem for everyone. There’s no way in hell that I’ll move back to a cramped rat race of a city like NYC, and I am sure I’m not alone in feeling this way.
I used to live on the east coast and saw kids riding the subway all the time. It's no different than taking them into a store.
A bonus of public transport is that you can let your kids do whatever once they hit 13. There's always a few awkward years where they can basically care for themselves but can't drive.
Today's parents are way too paranoid. My mom grew up in the country and back then all the kids were driving by 12 even in town. I think modern age limits are more about making sure you can get charges to stick in court than a safety issue
I used to walk to school alone when I was little. When I was a little older I walked my younger brother to his school, then I walked to mine. My parents didn't need a car to do that for us.
However all of us used a car to go shopping once a week. A four people family buys an incredible amount of stuff. Sometimes I walked with my mother to small shops to buy fresh food during the week.
We also walked to health care centers. Everything was in a 20, maybe 30 minutes range.
If cities are planned to place homes close to important locations there is little need for cars.
If I had kids under 12, I'd be all about grocery delivery. In my town you can order groceries online and delivery is about 5 bucks if your purchase is over $50 - not taskrabbit or anything, but the store's own delivery service. I'd go that way in a minute over stuffing kids into shoes and clothes and an SUV for something that should be a 30 minute job.
I've heard (in some places) in Mexico you can have groceries delivered to you from Walmart[0]. I was told about it, but after finding that article it seems a Walmart owned business, mind you this article is from 2014, and I heard about this in 2007 ~ 2008 from someone who was living in Mexico at the time. It is very interesting to see businesses other than food places deliver goods.
Yeah, delivery for the packaged stuff and walking/biking for the fresh groceries is nice. A problem with delivery, besides price, is that some stores still require a large time window. Being stuck at home from 9h-13h every Saturday would suck.
I'm a father of two boys (8 and 5 yo) and we live in a small village (Ober-Erlenbach) next to a sattelite city (Bad Homburg) close to a big city (Frankfurt). We could not get along without a car (actually we own two cars).
The younger child goes to a kindergarten on the opposite end of Bad Homburg. That's 40 minutes with the bus one direction. No, there was no option of a kindergarten closer to our house. There was no option at all, you just take it where you get place.
The younger child has an illness and we have to bring him to a therapy at least once a week. That's in a hospital in another sattelite city on the opposite end of Frankfurt. Two hours with bus one direction.
The older child has allergy treatment in another hospital in Frankfurt. One and a quater an hour with public transport.
And these are just a few examples.
Without a car my wife would probably have to stay home just to manage children.
To answer your question - children introduce spatial responsibilities we you can't typically efficiently manage without a car.
I don't see how that's unique to children, all sorts of life situations require spacial responsibilities. I could write the same thing about my own medical appointments and I don't have children whereas my grandparents had ten (10) children and never owned a car in their lives.
The original thought was "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury." You're describing a situation where the first criteria was not met so the second, of course, won't follow. So your situation doesn't apply and it doesn't take away from the original idea.
I have replied to "What exactly is it about children under the age of 12 that requires a car?", I did not say it is unique to children. But children is a big factor. We did not really needed a car before we had children. Now we need two cars.
"Everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury" is a nice thought, no objections.
So how about we'll talk about "owning a car ... should be considered a luxury" first when "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily" is implemented? Because it's pretty far from my reality.
Had a quick look at the map and it seems Ober-Erlenbach to other other side of Bad Homburg is only 10km. That's not even a half hour cycle for an adult.
It also looks like Ober-Erlenbach and Nieder-Erlenbach are the only two villages and twos around Frankfurt that don't have a train station to Frankfurt.
Almost every reason I've ever seen given for needing a car have to do with deciding to live somewhere with terrible public transport or lack of public infrastructure nearby.
You're right. That said, ideally the government could work to reduce those exceptional needs, like having more kindergartens or providing transport for medical care.
...which is what some government's do through the provision of an environment in which people can afford to own cars.
The argument that there are currently great reasons for automotive mobility isn't affected by the notion that a set of imagined circumstances could enable people to stop being reliant on cars in the future.
Not every city is built for it. And not everybody lives in a city built for it. I live in a village 25km away from Frankfurt, there is no way you could get around here without a car.
Oh absolutely, I should have worded that more clearly. What I meant was, that metropolitan areas should aim to make it possible to get around with kids, instead of having to make tax exceptions for people with kids.
What suprizes me is that you ask "why is it necessary to have car if you have kids?" and when I answer why you switch to theoritizing about how the world should be.
So either we discuss the reality where the next available pediatrician is in the next city (1h with two busses, imagine this trip with a sick child on your hands).
Or we discuss the fantasy world of "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily". But then stop asking, what is it about children that you need a car.
Kids can not only walk, but walk alone too. I was going to elementary school on my own when I was 7. So did my classmates. I used to cycle all around by the age of 10.
It sucks that today youngsters are treated as dumb. Even though the world is getting safer and safer.
That would be ca. 30 minutes cycling one direction, then another 20 minutes to the train station where I need to catch my train. 50% of the route on country roads where overtaking trucks are great funs. With a lot of rainy days from October till April and a few days of snow in winter months.
So no, I did not consider biking with a second seat. It is completely unrealistic.
Lee Kuan Yew actually thought, almost a decade ago, that he didn't go far enough:
“I knew that once people in Singapore could have a car, they’d never give it up. So, before it got out of control, I said you need a Certificate Of Entitlement before a car is yours; and the permitted up-tick in number of cars depends on what the road capacity is. That was the first move. So, you bid for it. If you issue more entitlement certificates than is prudent, roads are jammed. Then a younger generation took over and says, well, why not have more cars and we charge them by the usage on the roads instead of just purchase? I told them, okay, okay, have a car, have more cars! But once you’ve got a car, you will never give it up.” [...]
“I was moved on policy-thinking about transit by psychology. They are moved by maximizing road space. Okay, then you would antagonize more motorists. I would rather have less cars and get everybody to use the public transport, but a younger generation thinks this is the way to go and you are in charge, then go for more cars.”
I remember being in LA in the 2000s, and not renting a car (the innocence of growing up in Europe...). I sampled the buses that took 1.5 hours to go from Beverly Hills to Downtown. I paid $200 for a return cab ride from Santa Monica to Hollywood at rush hour.
In comparison, if the MRT has a 30 minute delay in Singapore it is national news [2].
Random anecdote: I commute by MRT. I guess my average wait time is around three to max five minutes on the platform.
I'm used to public transportation from Germany, but SG's transportation is so much better and very affordable on top. Cabs, Grab and (no clue, never used it myself) Uber are cheap when you need an alternative. I had a car for most of my life in Germany, don't miss it a single bit in SG.
I've used both MRT in Singapore and MTR in Hong Kong extensively and it's simply the future. Individually owned transit vehicles only makes sense in rural areas where there are no options. In larger cities, the only thing that makes sense is public transport. The externalities of individual car ownership creates so many negative factors in a cramped city environment that I'm convinced we'll look back at it and laugh in a hundred years. There won't be individual car ownership (except for collectors) because noone will want the liability when comparing it to the options.
It is important to note that Singapore/HongKong have world class, reliable and reachable public transport. The MTR is heavenly. The population is concentrated in big, tall buildings. Not quite the "lifestyle" but I can see why banning cars is important here.
Given that the standard of living is high, pretty much everyone will be able to afford cars if they cost the real market price. This will make movement impossible even if the populace owned cars just for leisure use.
Amazing! This more than anything else seems so sci-fi to me. Reminds me of the Diamond Age somehow. In the US we have so much space we take for granted building a new road a new subdivision a new 5acre parking lot. Imagine if there was no more space. Cars now become a whole lot more of a questionable use of space.
This doesn't surprise me. Already they are trying to economically limit the number of cars there (as mentioned in the article). Singapore has an extremely efficient public transport system and a culture that already isn't highly dependant on cars so I don't see a massive social shift being in order to accomodate the plan.
I spent a week in the South of France recently and the first Sunday morning I was sitting outside and this whisper of a train came by. No horns, whistles, smoke, noise. The service runs the coast every 30 mins. I thought about this joke service here in the Boston area and realized that we'll never have this in the USA; not this side of the Civil War 2 anyway.
I think it's overall a good move, given 12% of their land is used up by transport networks and it's a tiny island.
That said, if space is a real constraint, I think they could make a deal with Malaysia, if they really needed to, but I think their independent streak is too strong to allow that thought --they once were part of it, pre-independence. On the other hand there are "autonomous" regions out there.
The question[1] has been considered in some circles, although more fantasy than anything else due to enormous, maybe insurmountable, cultural and ethnic differences. One is Sinetic the other Malay --and in the past lead to some terrible ethnic riots.
Singapore has a lot to gain from it's independence from Malaysia and the ideologies on how to govern a country differ greatly from the 2 ruling parties so little chance of joining together.
That said, Singapore has been friendly with neighbouring Johor for many years so a deal could be possible given the state's own ambitions.
its like a bad breakup. Singapore and Malaysia were married, got into a huge fight, separated, and after living happily as neighbors for 50 years you want them to make a deal to cohabitate again?
It's funny to look at the history. When Singapore separated from Malaysia, many people thought that Singapore wouldn't be able to survive as an independent nation island state, with no natural resources. Today Singapore has the last laugh; they're the regional economic superpower.
I never really understood why governments insist on restricting vehicles and not access to roads. It seems like the scarce resource is efficient road access, not space for cars (even in sg, where there's not a whole lot of that either).
It's a toll system, that taxes you for driving on key roads during rush hours. Say electronic "Drive on this road before 9.30 and you'll be taxed 2.5 dollar" signs.
That feels like a decent idea to me?
It's a great system. The swiftness with which the singapore government installed electronic sensors _in every single car in singapore_ was also breathtaking. Bloomberg tried to do an ERP in NYC when he was mayor, but he couldn't get it through. I wish he had!
I proposed this in a business class once where our task was to solve Toronto's congestion problem. I cited many numerous instances where this has worked in many cities with far greater population density and car usage than Toronto - I received a poor grade and was told my idea of taxing the roads are stupid.
I'm guessing that adding one extra check to the bureaucratic process of registering a car is way, way cheaper than enforcing road access to a metropolis.
Idunno, just have ingress and egress scanners around the hot zones. ingress detected -> start accounting for higher rate, egress detected -> start accounting for lower rate.
Driving a vehicle outside the legal parameters (i.e. without paying the access fee) will carry classic Singaporean sentencing rules.
Yeah, something similar in implementation. It actually seems like they already have systems like this in place, but they still only charge for access during congestion in specific zones. My suggestion is a bit different in that you would also be charged for non-congestion running time, outside of congestion zones.
Which, sadly, hasn't really done much to combat congestion or pollution. The only real solution is reducing the number of cars - unfortunately never going to happen in London.
No, the solution is to increase the charge until congestion is at the desired level. That's the whole point of charging for access: if you are supplying more than you'd like to, charge more until you're supplying just what you want.
If you only want a certain number of cars driving in the city with good reason, then charge the amount which gives you that number.
Perhaps the reason London hasn't set the prices correctly, is that they want maximum revenue instead of a truly limited supply.
The costs of running a vehicle are mostly sunk costs. The capital, license & insurance costs of the car are higher than the marginal costs of gasoline & maintenance. This moves the decision point for vehicle usage to when you buy the car, so loading the costs there too may have some benefit.
I stand corrected. Let my modify my original statement by saying that 'adding' seems to imply that no new cars will be allowed in Singapore. Which, of course, isn't true.
My concern was that without reading the article, few people may know that in Singapore, most cars are usually removed (retired) from road use after 10 years.
In other words, I think 'stop increasing' sums up the situation better than 'stop adding'.
For small cities with the privilege of topography, it's ok. For cities with population more than 1M+ and heavily complicated topography, it's delusional.
I completely agree with you, and I think your branch is a good one. Also, personally, I look forward to the day when cities are essentially free of car traffic. I envision wide pedestrian boulevards.
Speaking by analogy, most of us rational thinkers accept that we cannot make conclusions such as "our government needs more money, therefore we must increase taxes." Maybe, but maybe not.
But I've noticed with cars (or, maybe insects) it seems to be easier to jump to "let's tax and regulate these bothersome machines away."
While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfront cost but good luck getting a car park for less than $500/m - and you'll have to prove you have one to register the car. Adds up to about the same amount.
I live 100m from a train station with 2 lines, automated trains come every 3-4 minutes, 8 minutes to my workplace. Bike share outside my door. 3 supermarkets and hundreds of shops within walking distance. If absolutely necessary, there's Uber or grab. You don't need a car here. It's a luxury for the rich, and that's pretty much as it should be IMO.