ST : One more station for Downtown Line

Aug 21, 2010

One more station for Downtown Line

It will be in Jalan Besar; Stage 3 serving the east to be completed by 2017

By Christopher Tan

STAGE 3 of the MRT Downtown Line, connecting the eastern suburbs of Changi, Tampines, Bedok and MacPherson to the Marina Bay downtown area, will be 21km long and have 16 stations.

This makes it 2km longer and gives it one station more than originally planned.

Stage 3 of the Downtown Line will offer commuters in parts of the island now unserved by the rail network an alternative transport choice.

'For instance, a person living in Tampines and working in the Kaki Bukit industrial estate will take half the time to get to work,' said Transport Minister Raymond Lim yesterday, adding that his 25-minute journey by bus today will be cut down to just 10 minutes by train.

Someone living near Bedok Reservoir heading for Chinatown will need only 35 minutes to get there, compared with 50 minutes today, added Mr Lim as he announced the long-awaited alignment of the third and final stage of the Downtown Line.

Tampines resident Francis Tan, 49, said: 'This is great. I can go almost anywhere in Singapore.'

The line stretches from Singapore Expo in the east to Liang Court in River Valley in the south. Stops will include Tampines East, Bedok Town Park, Kampong Ubi, Kaki Bukit and Kallang Bahru.

It will wind through some of the busiest parts of the city, including Sungei Road and Bencoolen Street.

The extra station will be in Jalan Besar.

'This was added to meet the needs of workers commuting to and from the nearby industrial estates and other future developments in the area,' said Mr Lim during his visit to the soon-to-open one-north station on the Circle Line.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said the original $12 billion budget for the whole Downtown Line - all 42km and 34 stations of it - will be busted, but it would not say by how much.

Stage 1 of the Downtown Line is in the city area; Stage 2 goes to Bukit Panjang, via Bukit Timah.

With Stage 3 now a slightly bigger project, it will take longer to complete - 2017 instead of 2016, said Mr Lim.

Stage 3 will cost more to build as a result, given that construction costs have risen sharply since plans for the Downtown Line were unveiled in 2007.

The later year of completion, however, is still earlier than the 2018 deadline first set three years ago.

Asked whether the longer duration of works will also push back the deadlines of future projects such as the Thomson and Eastern Region lines, the LTA said it has to finish preparatory works and engineering studies for a clearer picture of the completion dates of the other lines.

Downtown Line Stage 3 will have three interchanges: MacPherson station, which connects to the Circle Line, and the Tampines and Expo stations, which connect to the East-West Line.

The Straits Times understands that the River Valley station could be an interchange that hooks up with the Thomson Line, currently slated to be up by 2018.

Tenders for Downtown Line Stage 3 contracts will start going out later this month, and physical works are expected to commence in the middle of next year.

Construction will involve some property acquisitions - a Shell station in Upper Changi Road East, two parking lots in Bencoolen House, part of a food court in Peony Mansion, vacant spaces behind Kaki Bukit Techpark and Techview Building, as well as a vacant plot next to Plaza By The Park.

Fifteen landed houses in Merpati Road and Jalan Anggerek in MacPherson will be acquired; the space, with an adjacent tract of state land, will be redeveloped into high-density housing.

Mr Lim, in an update on the Circle Line, said it is on track to be fully open next year.

The remaining two stages - from Marymount to HarbourFront via Holland Village, one-north and Botanic Gardens - are near completion.

An LTA spokesman said the stations are expected to receive their Temporary Occupation Permits later this year. Testing and commissioning works will start in the following months.

christan@sph.com.sg