Are we playing Dungeon Keeper?
It’s been a while since I last wrote, so I might as well keep up with the blog.
Apart from getting my final year project and the CNY festive season out of the way, a while back I got to visit a few of the Thomson-East Coast Line Project Information Centres:
- Stage 4 and 5 Project Information Centre in Marine Terrace (you can’t miss this one, there’s a large sign along Marine Parade Road)
- Stage 3 (well, just half of it) in Outram Park, at the Contract T222 site office hidden behind Pearl’s Centre.
- Stage 2, and the rest of Stage 3, at the Orchard Station site along Grange Road.
- Stage 1, opposite Woodlands Station (I didn’t visit this one, leaving it here in case you want to)
If you’re interested in all that kind of funny geotechnical stuff (why not, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog, right?), I highly recommend you go down to the centres. However, they’re open office hours Monday to Friday, so oh well. For those who haven’t the benefit of the free time, I might as well start a new (semi-weekly, I hope) series on what I’ve learnt there and my thoughts on them.
Here goes!
The belly of the beast
With the TEL, LTA is adopting a new approach to station design — distributing many exits around the station, with underground connections, as opposed to building one or two main exits and making one walk the rest of the way on the street. This new philosophy is exemplified by their investing in rectangular TBM technology to dig more underpasses, and considering Singapore’s weather, more opportunities to walk in a climate controlled environment is of course welcome.
This is an option the MTR takes with its deep level stations — especially the newer ones on the West Island Line. But a major complaint that MTR received was that the station exits were simply too far from the station proper, resulting in long walks underground, even though moving walkways were provided in some places.
Is this new initiative by our planners a good thing? I’m not sure yet. But one thing for sure is that it can be further improved to make the experience better, especially considering what might be an ageing population that might appreciate having lesser walking to do. But how do you balance that with more crowded underground infrastructure, especially in the downtown areas?
Bukit Panjang Exit C
Earlier this month saw the opening of exit C at Bukit Panjang Station — on the other side of Bukit Panjang Road, connected to the station proper by a 150m long underpass. This opening was actually delayed — due to its position at the confluence of two canals, according to the LTA tunneling work was much more complicated than usual.
One might notice that there are benches provided along the underpass for those who might need to take a rest along the walk. It’s pretty far — I tried it myself — and I can’t help but wonder whether the walk could have been shortened with a moving walkway or two. After all, an ageing population won’t really take kindly to such long walks underground. For reference, the linkway between lines at Botanic Gardens station, while shorter, has moving walkways. Well, I know, we should be grateful that at least there’s a walkway.
Interestingly, one way the Russians get around it is that their stations are so deep underground, the escalators up to the surface already cover a significant portion of the intended walking distance. With future underground infrastructure going to force rail infrastructure to go deeper, could we see something similar in Singapore as well?
Another approach, as seen at Holland Village station and the upcoming Marine Parade Station, is to use the space for shops and other retail, generating extra income to keep fares low. Of course considering engineering constraints something like that could not have been done at Bukit Panjang, but hey, why not? At least the disastrous Saw period left a handful of good ideas.
S T R E T C H
Let’s now look at Mayflower station. Mayflower station has seven exits spread across two junctions, maximizing the area that the station can serve.
From the map to the side, you’ll note the distance of the Ang Mo Kio St 13 exits from the station proper, which is located closer towards St 11. Using onemap’s measuring tools would put the walking distance by underpass at somewhere around 100 metres from the St 13 exits to where you can actually board a train.
The authorities have the noble goal of having 8 in 10 households within 400 metres of an MRT station by 2030. Of course, that distance would be to a station exit, but within a station I guess that there would still be plenty of walking to do before one can actually get a train.
The conundrum is this — less stations, more exits (which means more walking), or more stations, less exits (more stops, so longer train journeys). It would seem that the authorities are going with the former, although that means we have tradeoffs to make. But of course, it’s better walking in air-con than on the street, and there are also ways to make the walk less inconvenient.
On the other hand, building more stations would drastically increase costs, and in a time where the government is attempting to do as much belt-tightening as possible, that might not be wise. In the final analysis, it’s difficult to do what’s right (nor will my bellyaching about this be productive), and it’s always better to go for the most efficient option.
Something extra
In 2010, the government announced plans for an Underground Pedestrian Network in the Marina Bay area. We can already see some parts of it coming up — it’s possible to walk from Raffles Place to Downtown station and vice versa, and as Marina Bay develops, I expect the network to expand as well. This pedestrian network is planned to connect to the basement of every building near it, creating an underground pedestrian street of sort.
Just thought that was interesting.
