Clementi is key
Examining a highly strategic station with changing value.
Editor’s note: I’m overseas at time of publishing, it’s Friday night here; while I have automatic posting on for the actual blog post, do expect delays in reposting to the Telegram channel.
The Long-Term Plan Review and the map shown in the LTA’s online exhibition pretty much confirms that there will be an interchange between the EWL and the CRL at Clementi station, with a high chance of the station being at the site where blocks 321–323 currently stand. Well, it’s finally here. The official confirmation of the station alignment of CRL2 is out, which largely follows what we already know.
Clementi is the only station really worth examining on the six-station CRL2 because the fates of most of the other stations are tied to it. Instead of taking buses from Clementi as they do now, SUSS and SIM will have Maju station on their doorstep and NP students can also be expected to walk or use campus-internal transport to get there. Likewise, West Coast station will also likely replace a lot of bus transfers to the EWL — it could be that West Coast residents can even go on into CRL1 if it’s more convenient for their journey. Jurong Lake District station will mostly do its own thing, but that is exactly the issue with it.
Depending on how the DTL2e plays out, King Albert Park may also prove to be an interchange of convenience, with limited extra possibilities compared to current transport routings. As we can thus see, the EWL-CRL interchange at Clementi may be the doing or the undoing of the whole CRL funnel depending on how well the interchange can be designed. It’s very important for the LTA to get this right — especially, in the only major surprise, there does not appear to be any form of JRL-CRL interchange at all. This can affect passengers’ route planning.
Considering how much of a foregone conclusion the details of this project is, much of this post has been written in advance of the announcement. I’ve checked for consistency with the latest official announcement, but there’s only so much I can do since I’m not in town.
Single point of failure?
At the risk of being blunt, there is actually quite weak integration between the CRL and the residential areas along the JRL. Someone intending to get to the eastern end of the island from the Gek Poh area or something might find themselves changing back to the EWL at Boon Lay as they always did, instead of going down four more stops to a probable CRL/JRL interchange at JS12 station.
And if they go onto the EWL, where will they go if they need the CRL anyway, or if they prefer the CRL due to the faster journeys it provides? Clementi. After all, based on the LTA map, there are an equal number of stations on the EWL and the CRL between the JRL and Clementi, with the CRL potentially gaining a lead if an EWL infill station is built near Toh Tuck. It might thus probably still be faster to take the EWL at Boon Lay and then change at Clementi to the CRL.
Worse, Jurong Pier may not even be an option early on seeing how Jurong Pier station is in stage 3, a later stage than Clementi. This means that there’s a good chance that habits formed before CRL3 opens are likely to stick, reducing the amount of relief the CRL may be able to provide to the EWL
Likewise, with any further JRL extension from JE7 station likely to be off the table for the foreseeable future (though admittedly that’s not a lot), Tengah residents will have to change at Jurong East to the EWL for 1 stop. I guess the LTA surprised us here as they did at Expo. The CRL blog projected an unpaid link at Jurong Town Hall, but the LTA chose to separate it out into a separate Jurong Lake District station, which appears to be placed further down inside JLD, roughly equidistant from both Jurong East and Jurong Town Hall JRL stations — in fact, with a rough idea of station locations already there since the JLD masterplans were released, we should have all seen this coming.
The lack of a CRL-JRL connection may be rectified with a full-scale West Coast Extension project sometime in the future, but that may mean that West Coast station will presumably have its own interchanging crowds coming from the area. With potentially more stations between JE7 and the CRL, travel times are affected, making any JRL-EWL-CRL trip more likely, which will thus go through CRL Clementi station.
And these are also over and above the current entrance and exit load of the station, assuming the bus transfers aren’t moved away. All of the above have to be considered especially as commuting habits start to stick. Perhaps things might even get to the point where the CRL operator finds itself running short trips to JLD or something if there’s lesser demand within the CRL3 industrial area. This would further underline the importance of building a good interchange at Clementi if not all trains will go to Jurong Pier and Gul Circle, with the limited relief brought by CRL2’s new routes outweighed by additional transfer demand.
Suffering from success
Even before we start talking about any changes that need to be done to facilitate the CRL operation, we need to address the current issues with Clementi station itself. One of it is that it’s simply too good at doing its job in terms of bus transfers, and this might cause issues especially as lanes and footbridges have to be closed and other road-level interventions taken to facilitate the construction of the CRL station.
As can be seen above, as of July 2022, Clementi station has the dubious distinction of having some of the busiest non-interchange bus stops in all of Singapore. This means that any invasive modifications to the current Clementi station won’t exactly be possible without finding a new home for the buses as well. A quick fix would be that all bus routes starting and ending at the interchange should not call at the bus stops adjacent to the MRT station, perhaps even being rerouted via Clementi Ave 3. Doing this easily takes away 6 routes from the stop, maybe 7 if you count 96.
But the fundamental issue remains in that Clementi station is the main point of access not only for Clementi estate, but also for much of West Coast and the NP/SIM area. As discussed, new CRL2 stations will eventually resolve this; but like Boon Lay this just shifts a fair bit of demand from the station exits (to get to the bus stops) to the CRL transfer points. It also won’t help the significant school traffic from Dover Road, Nan Hua High, and NUS High; perhaps the east end of NUS proper as well via service 96.
Before 2032, perhaps even in the next two years or so as construction works begin, it may be necessary to move some of these transfers away from Clementi station in order to decongest the roads and provide for wiggle room for the CRL construction. Remember, in Singapore, car infrastructure is bus infrastructure. This is harder than it sounds, as there’s not a lot of terminating capacity or locations east of Clementi station. I might even go as far as to say that along the EWL outwards from town, Clementi might actually be the first station officially affiliated with a bus interchange currently.
It can be fixed, but that’s not likely to come early. However, building permission was obtained for a temporary terminal at Mount Sinai likely to replace the current Ghim Moh bus terminal, which is to make way for a BTO development. Whenever this is done, perhaps some of the busier school routes, potentially up to NP/SIM and even NUS, could be shifted here from Clementi.
These bus routes would then pass Dover station, which would then take on the bus transfer responsibility; decongesting Clementi station and creating space for the modification works to enable connections to the CRL to be built. A further effort could also potentially be made to encourage the use of King Albert Park and Beauty World for now, by introducing special downstream departures to increase bus capacity between DTL2 and Clementi Road.
A tight fit
The second problem is the physical site constraints of the current station. Like most other stations along the western leg of the EWL, Clementi station is located in a road median. But what makes it particularly tricky compared to other stations, is how the concourse level is depressed compared to the bridges providing access. One has to climb stairs in order to get to these bridges, instead of just being able to plug a bridge directly into the side of the station.
Pre-qualification documents for CRL2 construction contracts don’t call for any construction of any viaducts, which means that shifting tracks in the style of MTR or London’s Victoria Line to provide more space for any CRL connection is unlikely to happen. This forces any design to have to squeeze within the confines of the existing station.
Offhand, something like Buona Vista could potentially work. Buona Vista has, officially, six escalators into the EWL station from the CCL transfer level — three connecting directly to the platform, three to the concourse where one must then climb a flight of stairs to get to the platform. The latter three aren’t very commonly used, but the CCL is a three-car system and the CRL eventually being an eight-car system and most passengers generally head for the escalators straight to the EWL platform. So perhaps if done the same way for the CRL, even the additional three might be heavily used.
As a data point, based on renders, CRL Hougang station has six escalators in the NEL-CRL interchange link. There is also a significant increase in the amount of escalators within the NEL station proper in order to accommodate the increased traffic from the CRL interchange. At a minimum, the EWL-CRL interchange link at Clementi might have to have the same level of provision. Six escalators might not be enough, but there’s a good chance this might be all that can be provided. What then?
It won’t be perfect, but perhaps the alternative might be lowering the eastbound lanes on Commonwealth Avenue West in order to provide sufficient clearance for a station concourse expansion (and perhaps another platform, in the style of Bishan?) to be built above. This will presumably be a lot more troublesome to build, but much more straightforward for a transfer.
Creating facts
Strangely, while the LTA was upfront about Riviera station being an unpaid link by publishing their map with a disconnected caplet, at Clementi the caplet is joined. On the system map, this means that somehow or rather they may have found a way to construct an EWL-CRL paid link — but the question is whether it can be considered a high quality link, especially after considering the factors above.
The limit of the CRL station as planned only touches what is now exit B of the station, which one might recall is a narrow footbridge. Might they be replacing the bridge? That might make sense, and if it’s formally considered part of the EWL station it might thus not need to show up on the CRL plan. Improved vertical circulation inside the EWL station could also be happening — like at CRL Hougang, it just won’t show in the map.
I guess the answer might be to watch this space, especially as various studies appear to have been done and will be published next month. These studies might have more details, but for now, this is what we have to work on. Perhaps, though, with the earlier LTA map not showing any connection between the JRL and CRL2, we should have all seen this coming that they were considering such a possibility. The location of the CRL station appears not to have budged much from the original JLD masterplanning exercise anyway.
Likewise, direct CRL access means that NP/SIM/SUSS students can directly join the CRL from their nearest interchange; which could be possibly on CRL1 as well. These students will likely never have to pass through Clementi station and thus may help to lighten the load on the overall transfer design.
In any case, decongesting Clementi by providing direct rail access to some of its bus transfers through new stations on CRL2 is long overdue; but it’s going to have to get worse before it can get better. This is the only real challenge here from a planning perspective, and it will be interesting to see how it’s solved especially in the short term before the line proper opens..
