One Less Car

My latest spiel in response to another of those fatalists, whom I spotted on a Cycling in Singapore post. As is sadly too common here, the fatalist in question insists that cycling to work will never be a widespread habit in Singapore due to the weather, the prevailing culture, current traffic conditions, etc. Now, the weather I can’t change, but I think it’s still a darn sight better than the weather in the American Midwest. Try cycling in sub-zero weather with 40km/h winds. Go observe the number of people cycle-commuting in places like Chicago and Ann Arbor. Then come back and tell me that you can’t create a significant bike commuting population in Singapore. Furthermore, people who bring up the weather fail to realise that the factor at issue is people’s willingness to tolerate the weather, not the weather itself. And people’s level of tolerance certainly can be changed.

As for other factors like traffic conditions and culture, it’s all too obvious that those can be changed too. But I will leave my case for those to be made by the comment I posted at Cycling in Singapore:

I strongly object to KY’s fatalistic view about promoting cycling to work. Of course, *right now* there are few people who cycle to work (as opposed to simply around their neighborhood), and *right now* it’s rather dangerous to cycle on many roads. But a major reason that few people cycle to work is that it’s dangerous. So we are in a chicken-and-egg situation, where the authorities refuse to build certain facilities because they claim there is no demand for it, yet there is no demand for them because the lack of facilities creates a prevailing situation where the product offered (bike commuting) is perceived as inferior. The economic concept of induced demand is relevant here — it’s basically the same mechanism that explains why adding lanes to expressways doesn’t relieve congestion (the initially faster traffic induces more people to use the expressway, eventually bringing traffic back to pre-expansion congestion levels).

People tend to naively think that bike-friendly cities in the West arose because the transport authorities spotted a significant existing demand for bikes and hence built bike-friendly infrastructure. In fact, the real situation is more complicated. Typically, it’s the efforts of a minority of cycling enthusiasts that push the authorities into bike-friendly measures. One bike lane at a time. But with each bike lane laid down, the mass of cyclists grows, as cycling becomes a more attractive option. As they grow, it gets progressively easier to make their case for more bike-friendly infrastructure. And so on. But at the start, there will be a ‘bootstrapping’ stage where a minority has to make the case for facilities for which the demand hasn’t ‘matured’. It’s a pretty commonsense notion really. Build the lanes, and the cyclists will appear.

Finally, I think it is incredibly short-sighted to claim that only low-income workers and crazy Westerners or Western-influenced Singaporeans will cycle to work. I think it’s pretty evident to everyone that oil prices, and hence the price of motorized transport, are going to increase steadily. It’s also notable that even in a society as car-crazy as America, bike commuting has been steadily increasing. This is not some kind of one-off cultural phenomenon. It is a signal of deep, albeit long-term, economic forces at work. If we choose to ignore it and plan only for short-term accommodation rather than long-term structural change, we will pay the price eventually.

It’s funny that KY rants about how people would not cycle to work if they were paid to. Well I think at some point in the not too distant future cyclists will effectively be paid to cycle to work — simply by virtue of the price differential between cycling and other transport options. And making cycling to work safer and more comfortable is also a way of ‘paying’ cyclists to do so, just not in monetary terms.

There is an insidious, self-defeating assumption here that Singaporean culture and Singaporeans’ attitudes towards cycling will never change — that women will always view it as the equivalent of menial labour fit only for construction workers, etc. Well of course if you go around saying that all the time and using that as an excuse for not pushing hard for cycling as a major mode of transport, then of course your predictions will come true. No change is going to happen when people go around saying that change is impossible. This comes back to the point that cycling-friendly cities (in the States especially) did not arise because there were already a bike-loving populations slavering for bike lanes. Rather, such cities became bike friendly because the starting minority of bike enthusiasts managed to get their ideas out and change the mindsets of people around them. The pre-existing culture was and is being changed in those places. To assume from the start that S’porean mindsets cannot be similarly changed is to make a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only people who believe things can change can change things.

*I was sorely tempted to title this post ‘Yes we can‘, but decided it would be too cheesy. For all that I distrust politicians, I think there is something in the Obama campaign’s line.

Here.

Not as good as the previous one, but I think it’s notable that they even bother making pro-cycling TV ads.

Ambrose and I recently had a lively discussion of this issue over at his blog. I’m pretty firmly against allowing sidewalk cycling, not just for reasons of pedestrian safety, but also because I see sidewalk cycling as propagating the attitude that cyclists do not belong on the road, which in turn fuels bad behaviour towards road cyclists from motorists.

I have also been looking up a few studies on the dangers of sidewalk cycling versus road cycling, and will post my findings soon.

Since it’s been a few days since I sent them, I assume that they won’t be published.

Letter #1:

Dear Editor,

I refer to the letter “Aesthetic guidelines: Leave it to the doctor” (ST, March 25) by Mr Oh. The role of the doctor is to prevent and
treat health problems. Aesthetic problems are not necessarily health problems. Ugly skin and ugly hair are not always symptoms of poor health, and when they are, they should be tackled by removing the root cause, rather than by removing only the symptoms. Excess fat should be combated by dieting and exercising, rather than by short-term fat-removal. Furthermore, it is not a general practitioner’s job to help his patients “become more self-confident”. If someone is having issues with his self-esteem, he should be seeing a psychiatrist, not going for aesthetic treatments.

Furthermore, Mr Oh draws a false dichotomy when he asks if the authorities would prefer that “consumers go to questionable sources of aesthetic treatment”. The whole point of the recent discoveries of malpractice and misinformation by GPs offering aesthetic treatment is that some GPs have themselves become “questionable sources”. As it is, both GPs and beauty treatment salons offer treatments that are scientifically unsubstantiated. But surely we should expect the medical profession to differentiate themselves from unscrupulous entrepreneurs by demanding a higher threshold of evidence for the treatments they offer. Only then will the consumer be able to reliably differentiate between doctors and the pseudo-doctors of beauty salons.

Finally, Mr Oh’s mention of Viagra as an example of a medically sanctioned drug that does not have “purely medical benefits” is
misleading. The relevant difference between Viagra and some of the aesthetic treatments recently highlighted by the media is that Viagra has passed double-blind clinical trials, and said treatments haven’t. In other words, Viagra has been proven beyond reasonable doubt to be effective for the condition it claims to treat, whereas those aesthetic treatments have not.

Letter #2:

Dear Editor,

I refer to Mrs Susan Yeo’s letter, “Ensure zero tolerance for danger by schools”. Mrs Yeo complains that prior to school-organised activities, parents are often given indemnity forms to sign, thereby absolving the school of responsibility for accidents during said activities. However, she is concerned that some of these activities might be unsafe. In this case, the obvious solution should be to simply not sign the indemnity or consent forms, hence ensuring that her child will not be involved any activities that she deems unsafe. Instead of taking this obvious action, though, Mrs Yeo would prefer that schools refrain from organising activities “with any element of danger”. She thinks that safer activities can provide the “same learning experience” for students.

Apart from the absurd notion that activities such as sports, all of which involve risks of physical harm, should be banned from schools, she is mistaken that safer activities can indeed provide the “same learning experience”. Suppose that the purpose of organizing camping expeditions is to teach the students outdoor survival skills. How else does Mrs Yeo propose to impart such skills other than by taking the students into the wilderness and bringing them into contact with the actual challenges posed by the natural environment? Virtual reality technology has not advanced to the extent that we can simulate entire rainforests and mountains, and however often you pitch a tent in the school field, it is simply not the same as doing so in the rainforest. Similarly, it is hard to imagine how one can teach students open-water canoeing without actually canoeing in open water.

The more disturbing aspect of Mrs Yeo’s proposal, however, is that she wishes to deprive other students of the chance to undergo the learning experiences she so deplores. Just because she is afraid that her child will come to harm, she would propose that an entire nation of children be deprived of the opportunity to learn more about nature, to acquire useful outdoors skills, and to improve their mental resilience. These are just a few of the many unique learning experiences that can be provided by outdoor activities. Under the guise of concern for students’ safety, Mrs Yeo ends up selfishly insisting that her child should be protected from all possible harm by depriving other children of the opportunities to develop themselves.

Letter #2 concerns an issue that particularly rankles with me. I hate to sound like an old hag but “youngsters nowadays” often seem too pampered to me. The more parents are unwilling to let their children actually get into situations of genuine strife and suffering (as one does regularly in endurance sports), the more likely it is that we will transform into a nation of oversized babies. It also seems that many parents, including my own, are reluctant to stop babying their offspring. In fact, they find the idea that they should cut them loose insulting — they find offensive any suggestion that their children could cope without them. But surely your having bred an independent child should be more cause for pride than your having to provide continual care for them. It all falls into place, though, if you accept the premise that most of these people are merely bringing up trophy children. It’s all about how they are manifested through their offspring, not about enabling new, independent minds. Once their children get out of their control, they can no longer force their personalities to be manifested through the little critters. And that’s what distresses them.

Arson and Arsenic reports that motorbike driving instructors tell their students that it’s illegal for cyclists to be on the roads.

Today was my first time attempting to cycle to work at 9am. I think whatever health benefits I gathered from the exercise were probably cancelled out by the pollution. Furthermore, it was a bitch trying to filter right. Two big filters that I have problems with are along Thomson Road (to turn into Chancery Lane) and Holland Road (to turn into North Buona Vista Road). When I stick to my usual starting time of 6am, I have no problems making those turns. Today at around 9.30am the traffic along Thomson Road was heavy and slow. Bloody taxi honked at me when I tried to filter right, even though there was a huge gap between it and the car in front, and I was travelling about as fast as the rest of the traffic on the road. And even after I’d successfully filtered, I had to wait a bloody long time before there was a gap in the traffic in the opposite direction that allowed me to turn into Chancery Lane. I should have just taken Lornie Road, hills and all. At Holland Road I had to take two pedestrian crossings to turn right.

The sole of my left Timberland boot is beginning to split away from the main body of the boot. It would probably still suffice for another weekend trip but I wouldn’t trust it to last a week of Tahan. So I have to either get new boots or go up Tahan in trail running shoes (of which I need a new pair too anyway, since my current Salomons also have incipient cracks between the sole and the shoe bodies). I really like the idea of going up Tahan in lightweight footwear, but I’m not sure how my feet would take to seven days of load-bearing trekking without proper ‘protection’. I’m not as agile and light-footed as your typical Malaysian mountain guide, so just because they can walk for a week in rubber water shoes, doesn’t mean that I can. And let’s not mention people (they exist) who did the whole thing in slippers.

Pros of going up in boots:
Better ankle support
Can splash in small puddles without getting wet
Potentially better padding
Possibly less toe-mashing compared to running shoes? Not sure on this point, checking with others who’ve done it in running shoes.

Cons:
Heavy
Will get wet during river crossings unless I bring an extra pair of water shoes along. Which would mean more weight, and also much time changing in and out of shoes (14 times!). Unless one wears water shoes for the whole middle portion of the second day?
Will get weight during heavy rain too (which is… almost guaranteed, for that mountain?). And when wet, will dry slower than trail runners would.
Less maneuverability when negotiating obstacles

The Illinois legislature recently passed a law requiring motorists to pass bicyclists with at least three feet to spare. (I think we might have to wait till the next century for something like this to be passed in Singapore.) Willow Naeco, a.k.a. Chicago Cycling Chick, has come up with a 3-foot-long “foam claw buffer” to put on her bike, so that any motorists that hit it will have broken the law:

Since when did having your bikes stolen become an issue of national interest? If your extremely cheap bikes are getting persistently stolen, that tells me that you aren’t locking them well enough. Suppose you use a solid U-lock where almost everyone else at the same location uses cable locks. Unless your bike is significantly more expensive-looking than theirs, thiefs would not target your bike before theirs. Since, in my observation, almost every bike parked at MRT stations is locked with cable locks, I conclude that to get so many bikes stolen, you must be locking them quite badly (with lower security than your average bike-MRT commuter).

I pretty much regard locking your bike with a cable lock as the equivalent of leaving cash on a public bench. No one would think of writing to a national forum to complain that someone had stolen cash he’d left on a public bench. So why should anyone care that badly locked bikes are often stolen?

Just for this ad, possibly the best ever made for cyclists.

I have in my hands an anti-golf courses postcard addressed to the Minister for National Development. It’s part of a campaign organised by Grant Pereira and lists its website as www.thegreening.org, but that domain seems to be defunct now. Some interesting statistics stated on the postcard:

Today we have 23 golf courses and 3 driving ranges here. They take up about 1400 hectares (the size of 3 Yishun New Towns) or about 1750 football fields. Golf Courses here represent about 88% of land presently set aside for sports and recreation.

Although I am sympathetic to this cause, it’s not clear to me that constructing golf courses on land that was bought for private consumption constitutes a public wrong.