Singapore's Urban Transport: Sustainability by Design or Necessity?

Singapore has been held up as an exemplar of sustainable urban transport policies (Ang 1993a; Newman and Kenworthy 1999; Schwaab and Thielmann 2002) or as a “sustainable transit metropolis” (Cervero 1998). This chapter first examines the meaning of sustainability or sustainable development as applied to urban transport and briefly evaluates Singapore’s system in light of these ideas. It finds a measure of broad similarity between Singapore transport policies and relevant sustainable transport ideas. However, there are also some significant deviations.

This raises questions, such as why have Singapore’s urban transport policies resembled purported sustainable ones? Was this an accidental alignment? Or are there underlying connections between the idea of sustainable transport and the particular imperatives that prompted Singapore’s policies? And how can we account for the deviations?

This chapter therefore examines the motivations behind the policies that established Singapore’s reputation. A review of these reveals a range of rationales, some familiar, some slightly surprising. Locally focused, mainly non-environmental imperatives are revealed as dominant, with no obvious connection with motivations usually associated with sustainable development.

However, there are some less obvious resonances between sustainable development and Singapore’s approach to transport. Furthermore, the limits of these provide insight on the reasons for the deviations from policies that would usually be expected if sustainability were a key motivation. These findings prompt some final reflections on the prospects for pursuing sustainable transport policies elsewhere.