Senior Minister of State for Transport Lam Pin Min openly lied in Parliament today (Nov 6) claiming that the new zero car growth policy will not affect COE prices. Without providing figures to back his claims, Minister Lam Pin Min said that more vehicles will be de-registered in coming years to meet demands of car ownership:
“The Government does not expect the move to reduce vehicle growth to affect the COE quota and therefore COE prices significantly. This is because the COE quota is largely determined by the number of vehicle de-registrations.”
When questioned if the public transport is ready to handle the increased commuters who stop driving, Minister Lam Pin Min dodged the question and said that the government has been buying more buses and building more railway tracks:
“For one, the rail network has been expanded by almost 30 per cent to 230 kilometres over the last five years, which means that 8 in 10 households will be within a 10-minute walk to a train station by 2030…Through the Bus Service Enhancement Programme and the Bus Contracting Model, there will be an additional 80 new bus routes and 1,000 new buses by the end of this year. There will be less need to own a car.”
There is no mention of rail reliability.
Minister Lam Pin Min also said that the government is implementing a new logistic distribution system within the country, so there will be less need for commercial delivery vehicles:
“One such project is the development of a federated locker network to improve the distribution of goods from businesses to end consumers…The Government is also mulling other innovative ideas, including the deployment of drones.”