From b9b627ca77048191577b41f40c352a9ce67ef61b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: altaf-creator Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2026 12:54:20 +0800 Subject: new font --- data/blogs.json | 5 --- data/blogs/urban0.md | 89 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--- 2 files changed, 84 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) (limited to 'data') diff --git a/data/blogs.json b/data/blogs.json index bf65d3a..14851b9 100644 --- a/data/blogs.json +++ b/data/blogs.json @@ -14,11 +14,6 @@ "thumbnail": "/assets/images/blog/33_cover.png", "banner": "/assets/images/blog/33_banner.png", "path": "/data/blogs/1.md" - }, - { - "thumbnail": "", - "banner": "", - "path": "/data/blogs/altaf-devlog-0.md" } ] } diff --git a/data/blogs/urban0.md b/data/blogs/urban0.md index 3ab7917..79c2c73 100644 --- a/data/blogs/urban0.md +++ b/data/blogs/urban0.md @@ -7,13 +7,16 @@ tags: - Blog - Urbanism --- - + ++=+=+= + +![Marine Parade Rd/Tampines Ave 2](path/to/image) + +This is a typical road that you may find in Singapore. Four 3.2 m to 3.5 m wide lanes lined with trees and 1.8 m wide footpaths. + +The roads and streets of Singapore are widely acclaimed to be world-class. This is definitely true in an engineering perspective. As seen in the picture above, the lanes are nice, wide, smooth, and with clear road markings. Traffic flows smoothly, managed by relatively smart automated traffic lights. Roads are maintained regularly with advanced civil engineering technology to ensure the roads are always in pristine condition. + +The traffic engineering in Singapore is definitely world-class. However, I feel like Singapore has been building its streets too much in an engineering lens. + +Streets inherently are spaces for humans. A street's function is more than connecting places to places. A street can be a place where people connect with each other. It can be a place where people discover new things around their neighbourhood. There is an inextricable social part in streets. When we ignore it, that is, when we design our streets purely in an engineering perspective (despite the name "traffic engineering), we are reducing a street's functionality from a place for the community to merely a traffic conduit. + +![Bedok North St 1, HDBs near Heartbeat @ Bedok](path/to/image) + +Or maybe ![Jurong West St 64 (Primary Access Road), near Jurong Pt near HDBs](path/to/image) + +Or maybe ![Jurong West St 51 (Primary Access Road), near Boon Lay Place](path/to/image) + +This is what I feel like I'm seeing in Singapore. There are many instances where wide 4-lane roads are cutting through town centres of heartlands, despite being categorised as a local access road. Town centres are vibrant places bustling of activities and businesses. Regardless of people's background and age, these are places where people want to spend their time in. Having wide roads cutting through it will make it harder for people to explore and find out about new businesses near that place. It may also be harder for residents living across the road to walk there, despite their close proximity, as wide roads for vehicles can act as a physical barrier that reduces permeability. Not only that, vehicles are polluting, and wide roads that facilitate vehicular movement will make the environment around it more uncomfortable to spend time in, which is contradictory of the characteristics of a town centre. + +There is also the impacts on road safety. Conventional road design in Singapore often features wide and straight lanes in arterial roads and local streets. Drivers subconsciously associate these characteristics with faster driving, just like how they would drive in expressways, disregarding the speed limit of that street. In an unfortunate circumstance of a traffic accident, higher speeds will result in more fatal consequences. In fact, the risk of a pedestrian fatality increases exponentially with the collision speed[^1]. Places such as town centres should be a place where people can navigate freely with peace of mind, rather than a high-speed thoroughfare that compromises safety. + +As of 2024, the road network in Singapore occupies 12% of Singapore's total land area[^2]. This is a significant portion of land-scarce Singapore, even comparable to the total land area allocated for housing (14%)[^3]. Since road infrastructure in Singapore covers such a large area, making sure that we design our roads and streets correctly, that is designing roads that accommodates the needs of everyone, not just the flow of vehicles, is very important. Therefore, designing our roads and streets with empathy is crucial. + +-+-+-+ + ++=+=+= + +This is where Design Thinking can come in. + +Design thinking generally refers to a methodology that designers can use to ensure that they solve problems by prioritising the needs of the users.[^4] There are numerous frameworks of design thinking out there, but they all generally have a common theme of listening to problems that a target audience faces, and focusing on solving them. This approach of thinking is (HBR plusses?) + +The reason of why I am bringing up design thinking is because it is often taught in Singapore schools, at the very least my own school. + + + +This does show that Singapore does know that even engineering needs to consider the social part of a project, to be able to cater to the users of it. Something along this line. + +-+-+-+ + ++=+=+= + +Coming back to my point of road design. + +(How road design engineering can be more emphatetic, by appling DT) + +So, if the government is pushing the practice of Design Thinking in education, why can't we apply it to how we build our roads? + + +-+-+-+ + ++=+=+= + +Hello there! + +-+-+-+ + ++=+=+= + +**Footnotes and References** + +///Footnotes Go Here/// + +[^1]: [https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-policy/priorities/safe-road-use/safe-speed/archive/speeding/speed-central-issue-road-safety/speed-and-injury-risk-different-speed-levels_en](https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-policy/priorities/safe-road-use/safe-speed/archive/speeding/speed-central-issue-road-safety/speed-and-injury-risk-different-speed-levels_en), accessed 9 Jun 2026 +[^2]: [https://www.mot.gov.sg/news-resources/newsroom/written-reply-to-parliamentary-question-on-land-allocation-for-roads-and-car-parks-since-2010-and-future-policy-considerations/](https://www.mot.gov.sg/news-resources/newsroom/written-reply-to-parliamentary-question-on-land-allocation-for-roads-and-car-parks-since-2010-and-future-policy-considerations/#:~:text=Singapore%E2%80%99s%20road%20network%20occupies%20around%2012%25%20of%20our%20total%20land%20area%20today), accessed 9 Jun 2026 +[^3]: [https://data.gov.sg/datasets/d_0ad604387b5b2dd99fbf48d89cb4f416/view](https://data.gov.sg/datasets/d_0ad604387b5b2dd99fbf48d89cb4f416/view), accessed 9 Jun 2026 + +-+-+-+ --+-+-+ \ No newline at end of file +[^4]: [https://reference.nlb.gov.sg/launch/getting-started/product-dev/design-thinking/](https://reference.nlb.gov.sg/launch/getting-started/product-dev/design-thinking/), accessed 9 Jun 2026 -- cgit v1.2.3