Reinventing Transport

Carlos Felipe Pardo and I discussed the intriguing and neglected idea of "slowness" in urban transport.  Slowness has a poor reputation but it has its place, especially in cities.  S peed offers to bring more destinations within reach.  Yet slow-but-steady is often better than a series of sprints between traffic signals or delays.  Deliberately slowing certain sensitive segments of many vehicle trips could bring huge benefits. Does that sound puzzling? Read on (or listen) and all will become clearer.   Listen with the player above or subscribe to the podcast with your favorite podcast player (click on the wifi symbol) or read the detailed summary below.  Digest my discussion with Carlos in several ways:  READ the article below.  LISTEN to the audio with the player above.  The Youtube version is at the end of this post (scroll to the bottom). My  Patreon patrons  will be able to download a full transcript.  ...

Singapore's National Day is this week (9 August). So I decided to share Singapore's urban transport story - or my slightly  unusual take on it .  It is   a unique city in various ways but its urban transport policies are well worth your attention even if you don't live in Singapore. This is a warts-and-all version of the story, and it is my own view, not any kind of official one. It's also a little wonkish in parts. [Hi all you policy wonks!] But I hope to keep your interest with some surprising twists, such as: Why was the bus-only public transport system in an awful state by the early 1970s? If the buses were awful in early 1974, how was Singapore able to impose drastic increases to the cost of motoring in 1975? You will have guessed that the buses must have been drastically improved in 1974/75. But how was that achieved? Singapore urban transport enjoyed success through the 1980s and 1990s but its core social bargain (cars for the rich; decent but bas...