My choice:
LAND TRANSPORT AUTHORITY
Perhaps the worst and most incompetent stat board to ever exist in
Singapore. A list of fiascos that have transpired from within this
stat board:
1. Upgrading of Bus Stops
Remember the fiasco couple of years back involving the upgrading of
those old red rooftop bus stops? Solar-powered fans? Advertising
billboards that slant one side thus blocking views of oncoming
buses? Billboards with fluorescent lights generating so much heat
at night the bus stop felt like a sauna?
And mind you, all these mistakes only surfaced after several
millions of dollars of taxpayers' money had been spent installing
them!!
2. Nicoll Highway Collapse
Lives lost. Road closure for 1 year. Traffic congestion at ECP.
Cracks on buildings along Beach Road. Amazing you need a public
inquiry to determine who is to be blamed when LTA has ultimate
ownership of the entire project.
3. Suicide of Senior Engineer
Just a perfect attestation to the mindset of some of our senior
bureaucrats, no less those from LTA who personifies the "top
management knows best" attitude. Little people's views, no matter
how valid, obviously do not count.
4. ERMS
Is it called ERMS? That gigantic electronic billboard that's
supposed to forewarn drivers of any congestions on our major roads?
Now tell me, what's the point of informing me there's a jam when
I'm already in it? Enough said!
5. NEL
What's that phantom station on the NEL!!? Whoa, nobody told LTA
that if you build a station above a cemetery in superstitious
Singapore, you are guaranteed to have zero human traffic? Maybe
they call it forward planning, I don't know.
6. NEL, again!
NEL to SBS Transit vs SMRT. What competition are you talking about
when one line plies through estates not served by SMRT and both
lines happen to be essential transport platforms for majority of
Singaporeans. Don't get it? If you stay in Sengkang and want to get
to Raffles Pl, you die die also must take the SMRT line because
smart and profiteering SBS happened to cancel their bus services
there! So what cost-savings is there??
7. Satellite Tracking System for Buses
This is something I can never understand. Why do you need a
multi-billion project to monitor bus schedules when all it takes is
commonsense? You know, it really doesn't take a 3 year-old kid to
tell you that between 8-9 am and 6-8 pm, there will be heavy human
and vehicle traffic and hence, you'll need to send out more buses.
Why not give bus drivers transmission sets or gather feedback from
them on road traffic conditions during particular stretches of
time? And it's a great mystery why buses in Sydney can run exactly
on time, even though, mind you, there are traffic jams and buses in
Singapore cannot?
8. Zig-zag lines
Everywhere I go, I see cars parked illegally along roads with such
lines where you are not supposed to even wait!! Bottomline: If you
are not willing to enforce rules, don't bother implementing
them.
9. Perpetual Jams at Orchard Boulevard
LTA must be idiots not to only know about the problem after it has
been recurring year after year.
