Recently there have been highlights in the internet regarding Town Councils mindless implementation such as :
- putting sign stating "No Playing of Chess in Common Areas" at a HDB void deck in Haig Road
- installing barriers on a walkway which caters to wheel chairs users at Bedok
These idiotic quick fixes in responses to feedback and/or complaints give us a glimpse of the working mentality of Town Councils. Seems like they suffer from a deficiency of common sense.
There are many examples of such Town Councils stupidity around our HDB estates in S'pore. Here are more of their idiotic implementations :
1) installing bicycle ramps on the stairs of a overhead bridge.. There is an overhead bridge near Tampines MRT which has heavy pedestrian movement. With the bicycle ramps installation at stairs, the stairs become much narrower. No cyclist in his/her right mind will ever push the bike up 2 flights of stairs of the overhead bridge which has steep slope. Controlling the bike on the ramp when going down is a hazard. Likely you have to press the brake and release it repeatedly as you move down the stairs. If you lost control, the bike will tumble down the flight of stairs posing a danger to pedestrians using the overhead bridge. Besides, there are 2 traffic light crossings on both sides of the overhead bridge. As a cyclist myself of sound mind, I will go for the traffic light crossing instead of endangering myself and other pedestrians by using the bicycle ramps of the overhead bridge.
2) putting cones at extended roof shelter to stop vehicles from letting passengers alight at the shelter. These extended shelters are built with the purpose of sheltering folks on rainy days when they alight from vehicles. So it makes no sense to put cones there as it defeat the purpose of building such shelters in the first place.
3) installing electronic board just to display a few shop blocks layout plan. When the electronic boards were installed, the purpose is to display and update information effectively. We thought it will replace the previous display notice boards. But alas, the layout plan put up during testing period still remains till today. The old notice boards are more useful as they are updated regularly on the HDB zone activities and govt policies (recently mostly on medisave life).
Town Councils are wasting resident money on white elephant installations and their mindless quick fixes render good intention installation useless to residents.
Georgia Tong
A.S.S. Contributor
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