The origin of the species... strange creations like 'bus hubs'.

This is a bus hub?...

(Photo from my paper, 27 March)

C'mon, it looks like an extended bus stop so that more buses, arriving at about the same time, are able to berth there without having to queue up (you know the saying about our buses, "One no come, all no come; one come, all come!").

But, no, instead of calling a spade a spade (remember the infamous word "ponding" to describe "flash flooding"?) and simply calling the above an "extended bus stop" or even an "extended bus bay" (I don't like the latter but I can live with it), the Land Transport Authority has described it as a "bus hub".

What's wrong with that? I'll come to it, but first, here's the key excerpts (the first two paragraphs) from the LTA's media release...

New Bus Hubs Improve Commuters' Bus Journey Experience
Three Bus Hubs Completed Ahead of Schedule

1. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has completed the upgrading works for three of the 35 major bus stops selected for expansion as bus hubs, four months ahead of schedule. Minister for Transport, Mr Lui Tuck Yew visited the completed bus hub at Bedok Reservoir Road this morning. Works on the Bedok Reservoir Road bus hub started in December 2011.


2. With bigger bus bays, the three bus hubs at Bedok Reservoir Road, Woodlands Centre Road and Commonwealth Avenue West can allow up to 3 single/double deck or 2 bendy buses to berth in the bay for simultaneous boarding and alighting activities, reducing the average time each bus needs to dwell at the bus stops. Previously, the bus stops could each only accommodate up to 2 single/double deck or 1 bendy bus.

I have reproduced the excerpt above because it seems to reflect the "internal memo after a meeting" style of writing here in Singapore, even after it had presumably been scrubbed for media release.

This is what I suspect happened. Someone at a meeting wanted a name for this creation... a short, snazzy name. "Bus hub!" someone else said, without caring to check out the ordinary meanings of "hub". The big boss liked it, and so a new, strange term, Singapore-style, was invented.

Okay, what's wrong with it. A hub, as it originated, is at the centre of a wheel. The idea also conveys radiating out, hence "hub and spokes". We can then sensibly apply this idea to, say, airport hubs, or more generally, transport hubs.

A hub also conveys centralisation; hence the building known as HDB Hub makes sense. In the IT field, there is the USB hub, a centralised device for several similar computer devices to  be used at the same time. I am sure other creative uses of "hub" can be invented.

But, sorry, looking at the picture above and the LTA's media release, "bus hub" is a misnomer. It is merely an extended, or "stretched", version of a regular bus stop.

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Why do I find this example intriguing? I think I may have found the origin of the "species". For a long time, I have been wondering why misnomers like "parking lot" (instead of "parking space"), "void deck" (check the dictionary meanings of void), "bus captain" (captain of what? The bus has only one staff member, the driver!), and road/project/upgrading "works" (why the plural form when "work" is perfectly fine?) have been entrenched here.

It took two hands to clap. First, some "official person" decreed or blessed these terms; secondly, Singaporeans -- including supposedly jargon-hating journalists -- blithely accepted the use of such misnomers.

Just read the various news reports today on "bus hubs".

Postscript: Hmm, maybe I should have titled the header of this blog entry in Singlish: Just follow, hor/Just follow, lor!