This week had got to be one of the most exciting week for public transportation in Singapore. Whilst taxi fare has gone up, SMRT service provision has gone down.

Incidentally, it is the week that you are now being told that SMRT will double its trackline to meet the doubling of the population. But the system made no mentioned of how it will handle peak hour traffic. And worst, what about a breakdown during peak hour services, how would it respond?

SMRT had been put to the test this week, and frankly it had failed miserably. How could a maintainence train stopped services for more than 6 hours and affecting nearly 60,000 passengers, which is a good 6% of passengers it carries on a daily basis. Angry mobs posts online grievances and then photos for all the witness the ugly scenes when a train breaks down for so long.

No doubt no system is fool proof but yet in hind sight, shouldn’t SMRT be prepared for such incidents? In other “FIRST WORLD” countries, CEO of such system would have been “sacked” by popular demand. Not that you cannot make mistake. but these people not only did not acknowledge that they have made a mistake, they thought that failure is part and parcel of the whole deal. Who gives a hoot about travelling paying passengers? Afterall, the important people are either on private transport or cabs.

Now, speaking of cabs, now that your minister had told you about how cab waiting time has been dramatically reduced, you should know, it is official. Cabs are for the rich. And frankly they don’t like to waste time. So for you common heartlanders, be prepared to erase the thoughts of getting on to a taxi unless you are prepared to pay the taxi driver extra $11 daily. And if you go around asking all the ang mohs around the city state, you will be surprised that they are laughing silently about the fare increment as you commoners are no longer competing with them for the cab.

Oh yeah, and commonfolks shouldn’t be thinking about owning a car soon. The government knows you would be thinking twice if you want to. Coz instead of a sky high COE, you are now greeted with one of many millions ERP gantries set up across the island state. And who says owning car is cheap?

So if you do not belong to the ultra rich, “get out of my elite face”, white horse, scholars, be prepare to slough your life away on the public transport system mix of buses and SMRT. But please do not complain about the messed up system, coz they won’t be doing anything about it anyways.