Don’t build MRT lines just to check boxes
I think the newly announced Seletar and Tengah Lines shouldn’t aim to do everything.
With a general election approaching, despite its political stench, the announcement no doubt has armchair transport planners busy making proposals. Allow me to join the fray.
I believe there are actually three distinct areas that should be studied semi-independently:
- the North Shore, from Woodlands to Seletar,
- the Seletar Line, from the Seletar area to the Greater Southern Waterfront,
- and the Tengah Line, from Tengah to the Greater Southern Waterfront
And even within these three sections, there are still some things that ought to be broken off, as they mainly serve future growth areas. Forcing the planned corridors to serve these areas will also weaken the economic and social benefits of the new line.
Plus, these areas may only become available in the latter half of the next decade, so putting a pause on them makes sense to get the line built earlier, and we can always build one more MRT line later.
If the government is serious about rail expansion and infrastructure development, they should ask themselves what should matter.
I must be clear that for the rest of these post, this is conjecture from publicly available information; and must not be taken as official information from the LTA. These are my personal opinions on how the line should be built.
Extension, not reinvention
For the record, I think it’s possible to do both projects together.
I think the best way to do the Seletar-Tengah Line is as an extension of the CRL’s Punggol Extension, turning south after Seletar and Sengkang. As such, this new line would have to be built to the same parameters as the CRL, fully underground with 6–8 car trains.
As I’ve said before, the Punggol Extension occupies the best catchment within Punggol to get people off the congested NEL. If you could walk to Riviera or Punggol CRL stations and from there have a direct train to the CBD, why take the Punggol LRT and change to the NEL; and switch trains again at Dhoby Ghaut, Chinatown, or Outram Park?
In fact, I daresay it’s actually not that crazy. Seletar Industrial Estate is on the way between Punggol and Fernvale, and probably worth building anyways. After all, the Draft Master Plan calls for the development of this area as an industrial estate, and an MRT station will be critical for access to upcoming jobs in the district.
Admittedly, there is not a lot in the next section, mostly landed housing where people drive anyway. But within Seletar Industrial Estate and Tavistock, there are plenty of opportunities for transit-oriented development and redevelopment. Skipping much of the landed housing could provide much faster journeys than the NEL and help attract passengers. Provisions can be left in the Serangoon Gardens area should popular demand in the area demand a station — or even to build one outright.
We then arrive at near-CBD areas with a lot of potential, especially once upzoning becomes possible when the airbase is gone. Toa Payoh East and Boon Keng are already densifying with new BTO developments, and Bendemeer could even get a transit-oriented development integration with the new station, as well as an interchange to the DTL. Finally, Kallang station would be better placed to further expand the service area of the existing station, providing an alternative to CCL Stadium station for the Kallang precinct.
Connections are key
Connections also matter. But sometimes we want connections, and sometimes we don’t want them.
Whilst not explicitly stated, all plans for the line seem to show a general arrow pointing in the direction of Marina East and perhaps the Long Island. Marina East is a detour, even if it’s necessary to get to the Stadium precinct and provide interchanges with CCL and TEL, if not Marina East itself. But if built this way, with trains having to pass through Marina East before going to town, this could affect the effectiveness of the line overall.
I think the most viable route for the Seletar Line is thus along Nicoll Highway and Shenton Way, to pass through the Downtown, both old and new — an alignment supposedly known as the “Arts Centre Line”, and for which provisions have been left at the CCL’s Esplanade station.
So much of the Seletar Line’s planned service areas can still be met. After Kallang, the line could pass by Kampong Bugis, Nicoll Highway/Beach Road (perhaps interchange with DTL Bugis somehow), Esplanade, Fullerton (link to NSL/EWL Raffles Place), and Shenton Way (link to TEL and DTL Downtown stations), then head south past Prince Edward Road CCL.
From there, the Greater Southern Waterfront also includes — perhaps even has its first developments starting at — the redevelopment of Tanjong Pagar port, which will be freed up starting from 2027. It is in this area that the Seletar and Tengah Lines can meet for through-running somehow, allowing Tengah Line passengers to also benefit from the Arts Centre alignment providing direct access to the CBD.
The Arts Centre alignment will be technically complex, especially to squeeze stations in that can fit the 6–8 car trains of the CRL (can you even tunnel under Guoco Midtown?) and it might take over 10 years just to build. The Shenton Way/Downtown stack may end up being Singapore’s deepest MRT station, having to go below the 38m deep TEL. And if that’s the case, it may need a separate station at Prince Edward Road too, leaving the spare platforms there for another line.
EDIT: In the map below I chose to run the line along Beach Road; this avoids the expensive rehabilitation needed at the Nicoll Highway collapse site. It still has to be done, but this just means it won’t be necessary to build the Seletar Line.
If the Tengah Line enters the Greater Southern Waterfront within the vicinity of Keppel station, it may also be necessary to trigger the construction of the alleged NE2 station to provide connections.
No longer left out
Further west, much of the Tengah Line can be a foregone conclusion, as it’s nearly a straight line from Queensway to Tengah via the Rail Corridor, and significant amounts of upzoning is taking place along Jalan Bukit Merah. Building the Holland Line is a spit in the face to these developments; rail lines will be necessary for the sustainable development of such high density, so the Tengah line is welcome.
Perhaps a diversion can be made to Kent Ridge to support the West Coast Extension, especially if that is extended to Pasir Panjang Terminal. This diversion could also connect to the eastern areas of the one-north district and to Science Park I as well, facilitating future developments there.
Any core capacity concerns with the Circle line also having to serve WCE passengers along with its own catchment in the former Keppel Club can also be relieved by the Tengah Line, should it go to Kent Ridge.
The next section briefly rejoins the Rail Corridor for a short hop to Maju to connect with the CRL, then onwards to Bukit Batok. Less development plans mean less stations can be built, speeding up travel times.
On the way there, we pass the north end of Ulu Pandan Depot. Here, perhaps the depot could be redeveloped into another integrated facility. This can not only serve the EWL, but perhaps allow for fully independent maintenance operations for the Seletar-Tengah Line, in a phased way to enable partial operations during the depot redevelopment, and minimize knock-on effects should the work get delayed — a lesson that should be learnt from the East Coast Depot.
Then we reach Bukit Batok and Tengah, where apart from serving residents immediately along the route, the NSL, JRL and whatever people mover system JTC seems to be planning in the Jurong Innovation District, can connect people from the northwest and the west to the Tengah Line. Thus, maybe there’s not much of a need for further extensions beyond Tengah.
Technical support
Another benefit of extending the CRL Punggol Extension is that there will be no need to look for space to build a train depot within the Seletar area, at least not in the initial years. There is extra capacity in the CRL. Changi East Depot is severely overbuilt, able to store 70 8-car trains on a 58 hectare site.
And in the west, the remaining space near Raffles Country Club not used by the Singapore Rail Test Centre, is 68 hectares; while some of it may be reserved for HSR maintenance facilities if and when the HSR materializes, I’d expect the CRL West Depot to also store a similar amount of trains as Changi East.
Yet, the CRL will only purchase up to 55 trains in the initial years. There’s plenty of space, and the Seletar Line’s fleet could also be stored at and maintained at the Changi East Depot in its early days as well. Of course, further down the road a separate train storage facility could be built in Seletar proper as part of the industrial developments there.
But not having to do that to get the Seletar Line built could allow it to be built faster. The LTA is not alien to this. For two years, DTL Stage 1 operated without a proper depot, with trains running out of service to CCL’s Kim Chuan Depot for heavy maintenance. And the NSL still uses the EWL’s Ulu Pandan Depot for daily operations. Using the CRL’s systems also permits an economy of scale to be built for operations in the long run.
Chop off the excess
The main issue with our medium-capacity lines, and which the Seletar-Tengah Line risks repeating, is that they try to do too many things, and end up with compromises where no one is happy. A high-capacity new main trunk line, if that is what the Seletar-Tengah Line should be, can afford to give up some coverage.
The first thing that can be given up is the North Shore. After all, extending the CRL Punggol Extension forces a choice between going south to the CBD, or going north to Woodlands. With the mainline going south, it opens the door for a new line to the north.
This new line could be more adequately sized for the travel patterns of the northern area. A medium capacity line may suffice, all the more so if it can detour to serve Yishun proper, with smaller stations. It can then connect to the Seletar Line in Seletar or Sengkang West, where North Shore passengers can switch to the Seletar Line to access the CBD. The large amounts of reserve site in Simpang still leave more questions than answers.
And to get it built, as a medium-capacity line, it could share the TEL’s systems and Mandai Depot facilities (again, way bigger than it needs to be) with a connection track in the Woodlands North area; before the time is right to build an independent depot. This first phase could open first as a feeder system to the Seletar line, connecting at Seletar Industrial Estate.
But where else could this line go? The North Shore can be just a first phase. Marina East can also be another phase. Marina East is not small, and depending on the scope of the Long Island project, it could get even bigger. At this point, it may then be acceptable to find some form of connection between Sengkang and Marina East. The LTA so far plans to use the Seletar Line, but as mentioned above, I don’t think that’s a very smart idea.
They can probably refer to the success — or lack of — of the TEL. The detour to Napier and Orchard Boulevard stations results in a 7 minute travel time — and perhaps that detour, compared to a ~3 minute journey along Stevens and Scotts Roads. With the Holland Line now a thing of the past, some may ask if that 4 minute difference is worth it.
Marina East will be a bigger detour than that— routing via the “Arts Centre” instead of Marina East and Marina South saves 5 kilometres, much longer than the 1.5km difference that the TEL detour makes.
If anything, most of Marina East is better served by an extension of the North-South Line from Marina South Pier, an approach which provides a direct train ride to CBD old and new. Or they could even split out the Circle Line’s Dhoby Ghaut branch. Any future MRT line in the area can chiefly aim to connect with the Marina East and perhaps Marina South area.
The wild card
What else could link the North Shore/Sengkang and Marina East/Long Island? The answer is PLAB — a key focus in the URA’s Long Term Plan, but which will not significantly materialize until the 2040s.
PLAB, as designed, will mainly enable increases in density and sprawl for nearby towns. URA envisions an expansion of Tampines, Hougang, and Kaki Bukit into areas previously untouched due to the military requirements of the airbase. Similarly, Kallang, Kolam Ayer, and Marina East will be free of airspace restrictions, allowing building heights — and thus density — to shoot up; their existing industrial zones are retained in what might be URA’s concept plan for PLAB.
Similarly, areas north of the airbase around the KPE’s surface section are also currently occupied by industries and logistics outfits, as part of a greater zoning of the western flank of PLAB at large; even the Lorong Halus Bus Depot will be built in the area. While some might get redeveloped, especially around Defu Ave 1 and the upcoming Defu MRT station, I don’t see much of the rest going anytime soon.
That really leaves the prospects for the actual runway of PLAB itself. So far, URA’s concepts seem to be to zone it as a largely linear area and to leave much of the rest of the airbase untouched; proposals which I may say bear some resemblance to the infamous NEOM project. And that means it may not need so much overall rail service with most high-density developments confined to the immediate vicinity of the runway; again, a medium capacity line can suffice.
Other areas such as Kaki Bukit would then be better served by expanding the existing public transport network, by running more trains and buses. Capacity investments on the existing network would then be more useful.
A question of priorities
I think the main issue here is to balance immediate needs for capacity and underserved developments against the potential for future growth areas. People in Punggol, Whampoa, and Jalan Bukit Merah may not be able to afford to wait for the URA to pull the trigger on Marina East; and even after that, infrastructure and utilities must be built before actual urban development can start, if not land reclamation itself.
But what can happen more immediately is upzoning in Kallang-Whampoa and Shenton Way. This can happen the day the RSAF turns out the lights at PLAB for good, as Kallang-Whampoa and Shenton Way already have more than enough land and facilities are ready for development. Heck, the plot next to Bendemeer MRT is being used as a solar farm as of 2025.
Of course, deferring PLAB and Marina East to another line to be built even later may give this line many of the same problems the LTA’s concept for the Seletar Line has — that many coming from these growth areas will have to change trains back to existing lines to get to the Central Area quickly. But in that case, maybe it’s fine, if such a line is mainly intended as a feeder to other high-capacity lines with excess capacity designed to absorb such loads, similar to the Jurong Region Line.
That can be the Seletar Line proper, in the case of the North Shore, or a North-South Line extension, in the case of Marina East. And of course, if they’re planned together, provisions — even cross-platform — can be left under the Seletar Line project for the construction of this additional line.
These proposals aim to find a better balance between our immediate capacity and timeline needs, and long-term urban development goals. Because after all, as anyone in the north and northeast might tell you, can we afford to wait?
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