Sometime in the 1970s, when she was still working as a secretary somewhere in Shenton Way.
I believe she quit her job after she had my brother in 1976, to become a full-time housewife. I came along in 1984.
Hello Mom! Cool hipster device you’re using there to, erm, type stuff!
In modern Singapore history, pedestrians have gradually seen their allotted spaces on the roads shrink. They used to be able to walk on the roads, sharing them with other 19th-century vehicles such as bullock carts, horses carriages, and rickshaws. Then from the 1970s, pavements were constructed all over the island for them. Pedestrians had to keep to them, largely for the benefit of motor vehicles such as cars and trucks. Then in the second decade of the 21st century, came the Personal Mobility Device (PMD) scourge, which saw an invasion of fast-moving vehicles on the pavements, endangering the safety of pedestrians. Common sense finally prevailed last year when the PMDs were banned from pavements, but pedestrians still have to share them with bicycles. My book Jalan Singapura details this history.
At the beginning of August, a code of conduct was unveiled for pedestrians, to complement existing codes of conduct for cyclists and PMD users. It was part of measures proposed last year by the Active Mobility Advisory Panel.
Among other things, pedestrians are urged to stay away, if possible, from paths they have to share with cyclists. But if they must use shared paths, then they are advised to keep left. Also, they should refrain from using mobile phones while on these paths.
It would have been good for the release of this code of conduct to be matched with a reaffirmation of existing codes of conduct for bicycles and PMDs, to remind everyone that the onus for looking out for others should always be on those riding vehicles moving at faster speeds. The concept of defensive driving - that it is the traveller’s duty to look out for others even if others are not doing the same - should be applied to them like how it applies to drivers of motor vehicles on the roads.
Ultimately, the underlying issue remains the lack of travelling spaces for bicycles and PMDs, which results in them having to jostle for valuable space with pedestrians. Hence, it’s great that plans to expand Singapore’s cycling path network are being hastened - it will double to 800km by 2023, two years ahead of schedule.
In the long term, I will still like to see bicycles and PMDs move to special lanes carved out of roads, similar to how Bencoolen Street has had one lane handed over to bicycles. This has to be executed in tandem with a whittling down of the motor vehicular population in Singapore, which will be a true fulfilment of the “car-lite” vision for the city-state. Only after this, can pavements be returned to pedestrians.
When I was reading through the biographies of the Workers’ Party candidates for the 2020 General Election, this section of the biography for Marine Parade GRC candidate Nathaniel Koh caught my eye:
Rekindle our sense of space. As we pride ourselves as a city in a garden, every plot of land need not be developed into another shopping mall or housing project. Green lungs should be well-maintained for the enjoyment and imagination of Singaporeans.
This resonates with me. A sense of space stemming from one’s experience of living and functioning within an urban environment is intangible, yet crucial to one’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being, and one’s rootedness and sense of homeliness. While it makes economic sense to build on every inch of real estate, it does not contribute to a positive sense of space. People need variety in their surroundings. They need greenery and open spaces. They need to breathe.
And yet, these open spaces in Singapore are shrinking or disappearing with each passing year. Even the spaces that are left are not spared from pruning and manicuring - the consequence of an earnest desire to “put things in order”. I’ve been told of how large stretches of the beautiful Rail Corridor have been closed for redevelopment works, to “spruce things up”. To be honest, I thought the Rail Corridor was already fine enough as it was. Sometimes, less is more. No need to make every bush or shrub look neat. Nature by itself is beautiful. And we need to give the next generation a physical reminder of what old Singapore used to be.
