SICK of squeezing armpit-to-armpit on the MRT train to Raffles Place? Tired of watching your CashCard reader flash repeatedly as you circle around for empty parking lots in Orchard Road?
With Singapore's population currently at 4.6 million and projected to reach 6.5 million in a few decades, it might be high time to consider "alternative downtowns" to ease the space crunch.
Six out of 10 readers my paper proposed the idea to gave it the thumbs-up.
They singled out some locations in the northern and more spacious part of the island, such as in Woodlands and Punggol. Others proposed somewhere in the east such as Changi Business Park or the Science Park in the west.
They cited the sizeable concentrations of large multinational and local firms in the these two places.
Miss Li Jia En, 24, a management executive who has to commute from Braddell to her workplace in a statutory board in Orchard Road, said the new downtown "has to be far away from the current Raffles Place area - but not too far out that accessibility is compromised".
She cited London's Canary Wharf, a sprawling and modern business and shopping development which was rebuilt from derelict London docks in the 1980s, as a successful second financial district that Singapore could emulate.
Miss Esther Fang, 22, said that the second downtown should ideally be sited in the north-east.
This would not add to the tides of south-bound office workers and west-bound students and factory workers in the morning peak-hour traffic.
At the moment, the accounts executive, who travels from Tampines to her workplace in Tanjong Pagar every morning, said: "I try to confine myself to the suburbs on weekends, but it's not much better than in town."
Other readers, however, said that the current situation is still manageable.
"The space crunch is intimately linked with the issue of public transport effectiveness," said management consultant Bernise Ang, 27, who works in Raffles Place.
She felt that the congestion could be lessened by upping the frequency of trains and buses going into the CBD.
Sports coach Kelly Gabriel, 31, was fervently against having a second downtown: "We already have enough shops and commercial spaces. What we need are more parks and places for recreation."
Said the Changi Village resident: "Please don't bring your developments here. It's already one of the last oases."
