SINGAPORE, Jan 30 (Bernama) -- The Singapore government is taking drastic steps to reduce the growing number of vehicles which are increasingly choking the roads on the island state.
Singapore's Transport Minister Raymond Lim said the vehicle population growth rate would be lowered from the current three per cent or 25,000 vehicles annually to 1.5 per cent from May next year.
Singapore currently has about 850,000 vehicles on its roads.
Lim said if the three per cent growth rate was maintained, Singapore would soon have enough vehicles packed bumper to bumper "to turn the entire road network into a giant car park."
Speaking during a visit to the newly completed Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway Operations Control Centre here, he said the quota would be reviewed after three years to see if a further reduction was necessary.
The Minister said Singaporeans were getting more affluent now and they not only wanted to own cars but were also using them more frequently and this had caused the congestion levels to rise by about 25 per cent since 1999.
He said the government would increase the rate of the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) from 50 cents to one dollar and erect more ERP gantries on busy roads leading to the city by this year.
Lim said the government would also slow down the pace of road expansion on the island from one per cent a year over the last 15 years to 0.5 per cent over the next 15 years.
About 12 per cent of Singapore's land area had already been used up for roads, the Minister said.
-- BERNAMA
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