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Any masterplan also needs to be stuck to.
One way to ensure this is to have longer stints for ministers and permanent secretaries.
Former transport ministers Mah Bow Tan and Yeo Cheow Tong outlined ambitious rail projects during their terms. Mr Yeo told Parliament in 2000 that Singapore would have 540km of rail lines by 2030.
But only now are some of these projects being built; and we will have only 360km of rail by 2030.
A plan in 1997 to upgrade the signalling system of the North-South and East-West MRT lines - which would have allowed trains to run at closer intervals - will be completed only in 2018.
If those original plans were adhered to, our transport infrastructure would have kept pace with the population boom.
As it is, the rail expansion programme listed in the Land Transport Masterplan 2013 may be merely playing catch-up, as Singapore continues to grow.
It does not help that some of the new lines are three- or four-car systems - unlike the six-car models in the country's older lines, and eight-car or scalable systems found in some cities.
Christopher Tan, ST
One way to ensure this is to have longer stints for ministers and permanent secretaries.
Former transport ministers Mah Bow Tan and Yeo Cheow Tong outlined ambitious rail projects during their terms. Mr Yeo told Parliament in 2000 that Singapore would have 540km of rail lines by 2030.
But only now are some of these projects being built; and we will have only 360km of rail by 2030.
A plan in 1997 to upgrade the signalling system of the North-South and East-West MRT lines - which would have allowed trains to run at closer intervals - will be completed only in 2018.
If those original plans were adhered to, our transport infrastructure would have kept pace with the population boom.
As it is, the rail expansion programme listed in the Land Transport Masterplan 2013 may be merely playing catch-up, as Singapore continues to grow.
It does not help that some of the new lines are three- or four-car systems - unlike the six-car models in the country's older lines, and eight-car or scalable systems found in some cities.
Christopher Tan, ST
