TODAY Letters
from Ong Jun Yuan
15 Nov 2013
The
Land Transport Authority (LTA) plans to build the Cross Island Line
(CRL), slated for completion in 2030, as part of the expansion of
Singapore’s MRT network.
The current proposed route would cut
through our Central Catchment Nature Reserve and “severely degrade
ancient, species-rich and highly complex ecosystems”, according to the
Nature Society (Singapore), which has proposed an alternative route.
Despite
the talk of losing biodiversity and damaging our forests, these issues
carry little weight with ordinary citizens who have no particular
passion for nature.
We are more concerned about bread-and-butter
issues such as transportation and construction costs, travelling time
and how these affect our daily life.
If the Nature Society’s proposal is accepted, construction costs and travelling time would increase.
Yet, while cost is one of the main considerations of any project, I believe there is a case for avoiding the reserve.
First, one should consider the cost as being distributed over the years until the CRL is completed.
What
may seem like a big amount, say S$1 billion, would work out to about
S$66.7 million per year over 15 years, an increase of 0.125 per cent of
our country’s yearly budget, based on the current budget of S$53.4
billion.
This is a small price to pay for preserving our reserve.
While it may be argued that the money could be better spent on other
programmes to benefit the population, could their success be guaranteed?
The effect of preserving a nature reserve cannot be disputed.
[You can always spot a zealot by their profession of faith. "The effect of preserving a nature reserve cannot be disputed." Well, I would try if I knew what the effect was. But it is a given. Like faith. Meanwhile, programmes to help the population cannot guarantee success. Wow. Nature, sure bet. People, population and society? Don't bet on them. They will always let you down. Success? Not guaranteed. With such faith in people, I wonder how he thinks he can sell his proposal.]
A
similar event happened before. In 1986, the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE)
was built, separating the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve from the Central
Catchment forest.
Today, the construction of Eco-Link@BKE,
a collaboration between the National Parks Board and the LTA, serves to
link the two nature reserves again, albeit only along a fraction of the
swathe that was cut to construct the BKE.
This will provide a
bridge for animals to once again move across freely. So, it can be seen
that the Government recognises the value of our nature reserves and
biodiversity.
[The govt of SG has always considered the place of nature in our island, as well as the value of nature. But it has properly weighed the value of nature against the needs of the people. The nature society? Not so much. As seen from the previous comment where the writer dismisses the needs of the people for the paramount need for preserving nature reserves. It is clear that his impartiality is in question.]
As of now, the CRL’s route has yet to be finalised.
What may seem like a simple map exercise, a line drawn on paper, may
have permanent effects in future.
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Comment:
For a letter
with the implicit argument that value is more than just costs, the
writer seems to have ignored the value of time, and only considered only
development costs.
The LTA proposed route is the faster route. The
alternative proposed by the nature society (who are not urban planners,
and have a declared interest in protecting nature) would add to the
travelling time. Let's say it adds just 5 minutes to the travel time.
5 minutes is not a lot of time right?
Not for one person. Not for just one day.
But
more than one person will be affected. Even if the CRL is a smaller
system with a capacity of 600 persons per train, that is 600 persons
losing 5 minutes on a trip. And that's just one trip. In an hour,
there may be 12 trips (assuming a very low frequency of 1 train every 5
minutes during peak hours). That's 7,200 persons who lost 5 minutes in
travelling time. Or a total of 36,000 minutes (or 600 hours, or about 4 "man-weeks"). For every working day. Assuming just 200 working days a year,
that's 120,000hrs a year.
How do you value that?
I think the value of 120,000 hours is hard to assess. Some will value their hours more. Some less.
Why should the Nature Society care?
Well,
because a good public transport system can reduce the number of cars,
which means less congestion on the road, which means less pollution and
the burning of fuels, which means less CO2, which means less
contribution to climate change.
Why do people prefer cars to
public transport? Because cars get you there more directly and faster.
If you ever take a bus that meanders all over the neighbourhood, you
know what I mean.
So you want people to take public transport? It
needs to be fast and direct. Looping around some spot that the nature
society wants to protect, adds to the travel time, and makes public
transport that much more unattractive, and car usage that much more
likely.
Protecting one spot, one area may be the most
short-sighted thing the nature society can do. As the nature society,
they should consider themselves experts on ecology and how things relate
and affect each other.
But they fail to understand that
building a meandering, loopy MRT line may well undermine the success of
that segment of the rail system, and that failure may well cascade on to the whole public transport
system and undermine the measures to reduce car use. Which in turn will
add to climate change, and so yes, there may well be a protected nature
reserve, but it may well be destroyed or irrevocably altered by climate
change.
So no. It is not "a small price to pay". The nature
society has not shown that it has considered all the prices and all the
costs and all the values. Its proposal is myopic at best, and dishonest
and deceptive at worst.
But the truth is probably somewhere in
between - well-meaning but blinkered amateurs with no understanding of
urban planning other than the impact of urban planning on their beloved
nature, making a idealistic, uninformed proposal to protect their
interests at the expense of others, and asking others to "pay a small
price" for biodiversity.
They need to make a better case.
