The scenic birdge

This is the causeway bridge linking Johor to Singapore. It is not a bridge, it is a landfill, which cuts through the sea to join the two countries.

Many years back it had been decided that we build the new bridge

for some reason, shit happens and malaysia decided to build our own new half. there fore it looks like this

it was name THE CROOKED BRIDGE....we now prefer to call it the scenic bridge...

As a engineering student i can't help but calculate some "impacts"..mainly on fuel consumption. as we can see the original bridge is 1km...judging from the artist's impression the new scenic bridge gives a total length of 1.5km.

assuming that we have a car that does 40miles per gallon 17 km per litres. so to cross to the opposite costs 0.06 litres. current petrol price of RM1.90 per litre means it costs u RM0.11 per crossing.

let's see how much more it would cost for the new bridge...0.09 litres to cross....means RM0.17 per crossing.

The average traffic per day is 60,000 vehicles a day (sourced from wikipedia) this counts to...21.9 million vehicles a year.

fuel costs of old bridge: RM2,409,000 per year ; new bridge RM3,723,000

it COST RM1,314,000 MORE everyyear...plus the building of the bridge costs RM1 billion (1,000,000,000)

Malaysia government subsidises fuel (read more here and here and here), which surpressed the price, and spends USD$1.4billion a year to do so. it is estimate that if the subsidy is to be lifted fuel prices may at least RM2.45 per litre...so let's assume the government takes RM0.55 per litre, we can calculate the cost to subsidies addition crossing-fuel to be RM3,613,500.

Therefore the extra fuel cost to cross the scenic bridge is RM4,927,500 per year. yes....nearly five million ringgit is wasted per year...this is the lower limit as most cars are less efficient than 40mpg, and the actual traffic is more than 60000 a day and it is increasing.

although 5 million ringgit is really as small portion of our government's budget every year, (USD$29.33 billion..RM105 billion, accroding to CIA world factbook). we will never know the implications if the 5million is used elsewhere...

SO, ARE WE LUCKY THAT MALAYSIA HAD FINALLY SCRAPPED THE PLAN TO BUILD THE SCENIC BRIDGE??? read on...

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the dispute of the bridge in short:

" Malaysia says the new bridge will allow water to flow again in the Straits of Johor, thereby improving the marine ecology and reducing the stagnation and the stench. Malaysia also hopes the new bridge will reduce traffic congestion in Johor Bahru, which is across the causeway from Singapore. Singapore’s objection is over the cost of building a new bridge as opposed to adding lanes to the existing causeway. At least that’s all the info that I could find. "

there is a conspiracy theory going around, which can be found HERE. the text that comes after this paragraph are from the same website:

to summarise the conspiracy...

1. Malaysia wants to replace the 80 year old causeway with a new bridge. Reasons given are –
To improve the marine ecology by allowing the water in the Straits of Johor to flow
To reduce traffic congestion in Johor Bahru2.

2. Singapore is reluctant to replace the causeway with a bridge. Reasons given are –
Cost is higher than simply upgrading the causeway ... Unspecified environmental concerns

3. Negotiations between the two countries are underway, but it is not moving anywhere

4. Malaysia has decide to proceed with it’s half of the bridge unilaterally

So what is all the fuss? Why is Singapore reluctant to cooperate with Malaysia in building a new bridge? Why are they stalling?

The causeway has basically dammed up the Straits for a little over 80 years now. As a result, shipping traffic has to go around Singapore to get from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Singapore gets a lot of revenue from shipping traffic.

Removing this dam/causeway will cause traffic to divert through the Straits of Johor, reducing traffic to Singapore and possibly increasing traffic to her rival port across the Strait. Both situations are not favourable to Singapore.

What will the end result be then? that is why Singapore will not willingly cooperate