Missing tracks and unpredictable weather: Singapore is a Paradise for cyclists. That’s about to change – but only up to 2030.
By Arne Perras, Singapore Arne Perras
Arne Perras, Born in 1967, is a correspondent for South and Southeast Asia and lives with his family in Singapore. From 2006 to 2012, he reported for the SZ from Africa. He has a PhD in history and is the author of the book “Carl Peters and German Imperialism 1856 to 1918. A Political Biography” (Oxford University Press, 2004).
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straight ahead, the Bukit Timah Road, from East to West across the island, it can’t be that difficult. And the just-acquired Second-Hand bike must be tried. So you go for it, so in the Morning, in the traffic, starts from the premises of the seller straight home.
A test drive at 88 percent humidity, the Thermometer shows 32 degrees Celsius. It is a sweaty affair, the flashes of life on the Equator, where it losschütten to at any time, and can crash. But the pump, which is good for all, otherwise the air conditioner in a computer screen staring and chronic stiff neck fight.
bike paths are not available, racing trucks, and buses
The route is multi-lane and well developed for cars. A Bicycle path is on the axis, and so the journey is considered to be benevolent, to a bold adventure. You could also say: anyone Who goes to Singapore with the bike on a main thoroughfare, needs a good guardian angel. Trucks and buses drive so close to a pass, the draught almost rips the helmet from his head. After 500 meters it’s enough. But is better descend, and the remaining two kilometers to the slide.
That’s it for the first time with the adventure on two wheels. No, for Biking this city is not made plain, even if it applies to other heads due to all of their clever approaches to transport in many city all over the world as a model metropolis of mobility. It starts with the car drivers who seem to be here even less than elsewhere to have a sense of how much space a cyclist needs on the road. It is also rare enough that a dare on the trail of the cars.
Radl-cities
cyclists in Paris, need a great deal of trust
Ambitious racing cyclists, there are already in Singapore, but it is your round early in the morning to five, if still dark and the temperature is tolerable. In addition, cars that could have a cut or from the saddle to get to at this time. Biking trails, the bikers can Dodge, there are just a few of what you want to change the state urgently. “We build a network for Cycling across the island and design our streets so that pedestrians, cyclists, buses and cars can coexist,” says the Land Transport Authority, the transport authority of the city.
Coexist, that is, so far: On the multi-lane asphalt lanes, dodging cars, traffic jams are few, because the number of approvals is limited and the driving is very expensive. A luxury for the Rich. The mass rides the subway or Bus, it is often closely associated in the public transport, and this is also true for some of the walkways, which are allowed to divide cyclists, pedestrians and, more recently, drivers of motorized small scooter. There are always collisions.
The state wants to plant a cyclist by speed limit slow you down
The state, therefore, is to reduce the existing speed limit for cyclists on footpaths of 15 kilometers per hour on ten. Researchers at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) found that the probability of severe head injury is Tempo 15 significantly higher than at the pace of ten, if a cyclist collides with a pedestrian. As the newspaper Straits Times reported, studies of the NTU-Professor Yap Fook Fah, “the Mechanics of collisions between pedestrians and cyclists” since the year of 2016. The strict speed limit will not make everyone happy, some cyclists feel frustrated and don’t know how they come rapidly enough from the apartment to the subway.
For the Bike-Sharing there are various providers, long wheels of Obike around were criss-cross in the otherwise orderly city-state (the residents of several German cities are likely to know what that looks like). After the Bankruptcy of Obike and the withdrawal of two other rival companies, the situation has improved, nevertheless, many residents feel by lying around wheels annoyed, so Calls will be loud, more solid Park stations.
A ehrzeigiges promise is to, by 2030, be
complied with, all in All, Singapore is not an ideal biotope for cyclists, which of course is also the tropical-hot and rainy climate. Nevertheless, there are places where it is pretty to. At the East Coast Park, for example, can hire people wheels and the coast under the palm trees along the drive, the salty breeze from the sea, yet relaxing, as well as routes along the so-called green corridors will be extended. Under the jungle trees, it’s cozy there, and kingfishers along shoot small streams, and for a Moment the Idyllic that you forget that Singapore is a Five-million-metropolis, where every square centimeter with the utmost care will be scheduled.
fortunately, it will benefit in the future cyclists. “We will transform Singapore into a Cycling-friendly city,” is the ambitious promise. By 2030 there will be 700 kilometres of bike paths criss-cross through the metropolis. And maybe then car, no one in front of lorries and buses on the big Bukit Timah Road, trembling.
In this series, the SZ is illuminated on the Situation of Cycling in the big cities of the world. Most recently Vienna (29.9 appeared:.), London (6.10.), Beijing (20.10.), Paris (10.11.).