Mobikes in Singapore — the bike-share company i went with as they offered free rides for month of July and August (almost in the same fashion as Uber grabbing market share and running a loss day to day while being sustained by more investment capital— but that’s for another article); still taken from here
Finally getting round to posting this after letting it fester as a draft for the past few months. Was meaning to lengthen and polish it first, but decided to publish as is as I will be posting a longer piece shortly on my work on bike-use and bike sharing in Vassar College and Poughkeepsie, where I’ve been studying abroad at for the semester.
Earlier this year, just moments after arriving in Tam Ky, Vietnam, I found myself behind handlebars and headed down a wooden plank connecting our accommodation’s porch to the asphalt, and into a sea of cars, motorcycles, other bicycles, trying not to lose sight of my girlfriend and our friend we were visiting in Tam Ky. Having only cycled a few times in my lifetime, I was terrified. Aside from the one or two major roads, there were few signs or even lines on the roads that demarcated lanes or who had the right of way. However, I found myself quickly acclimatizing to the ebb and flow of traffic as my muscle memory of riding a bike returned. It probably also helped that the road culture and its unspoken rules in the absence of much traffic infrastructure was fantastic. Drivers and riders were always on the look out for others, and were able to criss-cross surprisingly safely and efficiently at four road junctions. For the same reasons, I also felt safe crossing roads where cars and bikes would be whishing past in front and behind of me.
Back in Singapore a month later, I decided to start cycling again. Having recently moved into a neighbourhood a distance from the MRT (the train network in Singapore), riding seemed like a transport option that made sense to pick up. Additionally, the introduction of bike sharing services in Singapore was timely. It was my first time riding outside of parks in Singapore. However, while I was no longer cycling in road traffic, the first few times I rode were extremely frustrating and difficult for an unseasoned rider. In the last month of riding, there have been times where I had to dismount and carry the bike when met with steps. Sharing the narrow strip with pedestrians who were likely equally annoyed at the steadily increasing intrusion of personal transport devices meant that there were people that refused to move to a side for me to pass through, and even one incident where someone gave me a hard push when I was cycling past them. Riding on the roads in my neighbourhood was out of the question for me, unless I was returning home past midnight and there were no cars in sight. Cycling then, at 3 or 4 in the morning, was wonderfully therapeutic and stress-free. While there were quite a number of cyclists around the Rochor-Bugis area where I worked in, cycling on the narrow roads and alleys there had been frankly dangerous for a biking young-blood like myself.
For the most part, gone was the magic of being on a chalkboard skating rink on which the pedestrians, cars, scooters, and bikes gracefully danced around each other. It was hard to appreciate my surroundings when I was constantly stopping and going, and second guessing whether others would allow me to pass through. Obviously, Singapore has its own sidewalk norms and culture. In places where there have never been much bikes at all, it is not unexpected that people would have an averse reaction to their sudden influx. However, cycling gave me a new understanding and appreciation for my neighbourhood and workplace area. Cycling meant that I had to first look at a map of the area and see which would be the smoothest route to take, but once I mounted the bike, I had to recall which lanes I was supposed to go down, and over time, learned them and committed them to memory. Another thing I loved being on a bike is how it transforms my thought process or daydreaming (the safe kind). Different modes of transportation places the mind in a different state of thinking. Cycling induces a state where I am free to continue strands of thoughts at my own pace through controlling speed and variation just like in walking, but also detaches me from the environment in the same manner sitting in a car or boat does. The variation in pedalling and being carried by momentum is also reminiscent of ice skating, promoting a rhythm for shifting thoughts or moving in and out of rumination.
The establishment of the various bike sharing companies in Singapore speaks to the ‘green and smart city’ its government envisions as the city’s future. The improvements to public transport, the advent of ride sharing services, and increase in car ownership prices and road taxes have not slowed the heavy automobile proliferation we see today by much. An increase in the use of bikes and other personal transport devices could be an additional means of reducing Singapore’s carbon emission from the roads. Aside from the environmental benefits, increased bike use would also have health benefits for Singaporeans, from the reduction in air pollution, and the increase in physical activity. Socioculturally, biking also brings people closer to the city, to the environment, and to each other.
We are still far from that future, however. While the bike sharing companies have faced problems such as theft and hoarding of their bikes, improper parking, and general public nonacceptance, I feel the larger obstacles present are the lack of bike infrastructure that would allow bike usage to become widely adopted. A lack of bicycle paths and bike highways results in impossible traversing of narrow sidewalks and alleys, inconveniencing pedestrians as well, or illegal and dangerous riding on the roads with unsuspecting drivers. The weather in Singapore and the lack of shower facilities in workplaces and provision of time to clean oneself after arriving at work disincentives using bikes, and even public transport for many. However, the chicken and egg problem of whether to first introduce infrastructure or increase adoption is one that isn’t so easily navigated. I believe that this is the biggest boon of the introduction of these bike sharing services — it steadily cultivates a push toward tomorrow’s development of such infrastructure as long as people see some good and are willing to give cycling a try in the more bike-unfriendly today.
This piece has also been cross published on Medium and LinkedIn.