It’s about time, for rail expansion
Now we know more about the Seletar and Tengah Lines, potentially Singapore’s last MRT lines.
At the Transport Ministry’s Committee of Supply, further MRT development plans — or at least a teaser — were announced. Of course, it is an election year, and a year after our MRT expansion failings were exposed with the 6-day EWL disruption, so this could have been seen coming.
There’s a lot to unpack. As the biggest sign of things, the West Coast Extension now has a timeline; along with switching its eastern terminal from Haw Par Villa to Kent Ridge.
That may also be political reason why the LTA saw fit to insist that reports of the Seletar Line’s death may be greatly exaggerated. But there may also be reason to trust that it’s here to stay. It is largely unchanged from the initial announcement in the 2019 Land Transport Masterplan, apart from Minister Chee’s aside that hopefully, the line might serve Toa Payoh (his constituency) somehow. All the more so if it already goes to Whampoa, Kallang, and Serangoon North; Toa Payoh East would not be a big detour, and even so, would have the density to justify it.
What is really new is the Tengah Line — clearly a response to the need for transport capacity from the northwest, but perhaps not the west at large, unless you count taking the JRL or CRL then transferring. And unlike the Holland Line before it, which has more than its fair share of problems, the Tengah Line will pass through the densely occupied Bukit Merah area, which will only get even denser as sites like Redhill Close are developed.
The work continues
Yes, there were problems with the Seletar-Holland Line as inferred from the 2001 Concept Plan.
In the Transport Ministry’s announcements, many of those questions were not answered; and to be fair, as part of the study process, they may not be for the next few years. The figure that 400k households will benefit still stands, but that now seems to include the new Tengah Line.
So what are these problems mentioned with the Seletar Line? Much of them revolve around utility. These issues may impact its relief potential, all the more if there are no convenient interchanges or excess capacity to meet these needs.
First, we don’t have any clarity on how the Seletar Line may serve the interior of Yishun; Yishun is still not mentioned at all.
Secondly, we don’t know how the Seletar Line may serve more parts of the northeast, apart from Sengkang West (Fernvale). How will it be able to sufficiently attract residents in Punggol and other parts of Sengkang to meaningfully relieve the NEL and also justify its own construction?
Thirdly, a curious focus on Marina East still remains; while a crosstown connection between five MRT lines will be welcome, it also means that Seletar Line passengers may have to interchange back to the existing network or sit through a detour to access the CBD.
On the other hand, what is actually dead is the Holland Line. Good riddance, I say. Instead, it has been replaced by a new corridor through Queensway and Bukit Merah; and I suppose to think that by necessity, between Bukit Batok (perhaps Maju CRL) and Queensway, this replacement Tengah Line will pass along the Rail Corridor.
It makes sense, as they’re building 40 story BTOs in Queensway and Bukit Merah — and Tanglin Halt as well, if the Tengah Line does indeed use the Rail Corridor. On the other hand, Holland has GCBs and Istana Woodneuk, a forest. So it has to be asked, is there even a viable market for express MRT lines, apart from the angsty Redditor NSF living in Tampines and booking in at Tengah Airbase?
That may explain its transformation into the Tengah Line, by providing connections from Tengah, the Jurong Innovation District, and Bukit Batok Central southward somehow to businesses in one-north and commercial redevelopment in both Bukit Merah and the Greater Southern Waterfront.
As part of its studies process, the LTA says it may eventually join together both lines. If that option is being explored in the study, why would the Seletar Line be killed? But that could also result in repeating the mistakes of our medium-capacity lines, where different parts of the line have different demand patterns, and capacity needed for one part may be excess in another part. But then again, between the north, the northeast, Toa Payoh-Whampoa, and Bukit Merah, a high-capacity line may work.
I’ll probably have more to say on what I think these projects could look like, refining earlier posts based on the new parameters provided by the LTA, so do stay tuned for that.
Better justifications
The other project firmed up is the West Coast Extension of the JRL. It will be done in two phases:
- Phase 1, from Pandan Reservoir to CRL West Coast, by the late 2030s
- Phase 2, from CRL West Coast to CCL Kent Ridge, by the early 2040s
The value of the West Coast Extension, against other alternatives, was that it can be done much quicker. I said the mid 2030s previously, but perhaps I have been too optimistic, as usual. Still, the timeline as announced may just barely work.
Phase 1 could reuse early engineering work done under the main JRL project, if that work exists. And while a completion date of the late 2030s may be a bit too late, if the LTA works fast enough and can begin procurement soon, they may be able to piggyback on the main JRL project by expanding work scopes and reusing assets deployed by contractors, reducing costs and hopefully pushing up timelines. Similarly, West Coast JRL station could be built by the contractor for CRL West Coast station.
Things like the trains needed for the extension can also be purchased now, while Hyundai Rotem has the production line open, avoiding an expensive orphan order down the road. They know how to do this. CRL control systems were purchased as an option order to the JRL; it would only make sense if extensions to the JRL were also procured in a similar manner. And buying so many DTL and TEL trains would only make sense if they already accounted for plans to extend to Sungei Bedok and T5 respectively.
Or if a clean break with the previous design is made, the LTA should take advantage of modern technology not available a decade ago when JRL design started, and implement them when designing the extension. These technologies can reduce costs and improve productivity, and allow them to build the line faster.
But Phase 2 is where things get much trickier. After all, one change from the initial plans was that no longer would the JRL interchange at Haw Par Villa, but at Kent Ridge instead.
This improves the economics of the line; as like NTU, NUS students can now use the JRL to cross campus as an alternative to overcrowded NUS internal shuttle buses, should a station be built in NUS’ west near Engineering, FASS, Central Library, or even UTown. There will also be a direct train journey to Science Park 1, a growing jobs centre, from the residential estates of the west, avoiding the need to go to Buona Vista by EWL and change to the Circle Line.
There is also much future potential near Kent Ridge, aligning with previous statements. Depending on the alignment, the West Coast Extension may be able to serve parts of “greater one-north” as well, like the white sites at and around SIT’s Dover Campus. Similarly, Kent Ridge JRL station can be future proofed to enable an extension down to Pasir Panjang Terminal when it’s eventually redeveloped, by continuing down via an extension of South Buona Vista Road to connect to Science Park Road and then into Pasir Panjang Terminal, perhaps in the later part of the 2040s.
But in exchange for the better economics, the journey there will get harder, with the LTA claiming an early-2040s implementation timeline for Phase 2. It could speed up especially as the studies take shape and we know what to do, but plenty of engineering work may have to be redone, especially if it’s necessary to dig tunnels to get the JRL around NUS and into Kent Ridge station. And that work takes time.
Still, questions must be asked about network effects. The Tengah Line may pass tantalisingly close to Kent Ridge, that an interchange could possibly be built. If it is, the Tengah Line could serve as an alternative to the Circle Line in getting West Coast Extension users to the CBD. Perhaps planners might do well to keep that in mind too.
The policy that was promised
But likewise, policy questions still remain.
Firstly, the question still remains how fast we can build. After all, whatever their final forms, the Seletar Line and Tengah Line may only be completed by the 2040s; the West Coast Extension, at the end of next decade by the earliest. For a government that claims to build for the future, the LTA is a strange outlier, for what it needs to do and what it actually does.
The Transport Ministry and National Development Ministry must work with the LTA to review its construction design paradigms, processes, and staffing in order to ensure the success of its rail expansion plans, and these announcements only underline the urgency of confronting these issues. MND must also be involved in what may be structural reform, because of the new growth areas it wants to develop under the Master Plan, which will only succeed with rail service.
The LTA must also think about avoiding complexity. While the 4-in-1 East Coast depot may seem ambitious, the complexity has resulted in a two-year delay to TEL5 and DTL3 Extension. This is even worse in light of the LTMP 2008’s plan for the Eastern Region Line to open by 2020.
To put things into perspective, the Queensway Canopy BTO, near where the Tengah Line is likely to serve, will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2028. If the Tengah Line is completed in the early 2040s, that will mean residents of Queensway Canopy will have to wait 15 years before they can get MRT service.
Thus, any meaningful relief to the EWL and NEL will not come sooner than later. Worse, completing the Seletar Line in the 2040s will not give us the easy way out when system renewals must be done on the NEL after it turns 30 in 2033. Without the Seletar Line, there will be no alternative to running hordes of buses past closed NEL stations.
Secondly, we need to build connections too, to bring people to these lines. This will be a large project, but it will not succeed by itself. The problems with the Seletar line in serving Yishun and Punggol must be answered; whether as a CRL extension, or an LRT system, or some other solution. Perhaps the upcoming Land Transport Masterplan may close the gap with smaller projects not yet announced.
Train services are also not the only connections that matter. These will be significantly more train capacity, and it will be necessary to make sure that we don’t create more intermodal competition. Feeder services are also needed to connect to the new lines. On the other hand, West Coast Road, Jalan Bukit Merah, and the northeast City Direct network have significant amount of bus services that will have to compete with rail, and questions must be asked about their viability once train lines are built.
Any further delay to rail projects forces the LTA to commit to large-scale investment in bus infrastructure and asset renewal for bus services to bridge the gap; as buses that age out of the 17-year statutory lifespan have to be replaced. This already happened with the Bus Service Enhancement Programme in 2012, where rail investment was not coming fast enough and they had to throw money at buses to fill the gap.
But when the rail lines can open on time to provide the capacity instead, route reorganization can be — must be — implemented on such bus-heavy corridors to get people to take the train. All this can only happen if the new lines are built quickly.
Thirdly, while money may be a problem, I won’t be surprised if a reason why they can firm up a timeline for the West Coast Extension is because the government at large turned a $6 billion surplus this year, giving them the fiscal headroom to proceed. It would only be fair to ask questions if they turned such a large surplus but yet advanced no plans to improve infrastructure despite the clear holes; fortunately, that did not happen.
At the risk of sounding entitled, one must ask, why not more? Accelerate these projects by paying off landowners to acquire their land, instead of waiting for leases to expire. Building in new areas or areas undergoing redevelopment earlier may even be more cost-effective, instead of what we we’re seeing with the JRL and CRL, where the MRT is the last to be built in places like Tengah, Tampines North, and perhaps Taman Jurong, and things must be done to mitigate inconveniences instead of just building.
After all, in the 2013 Land Transport Masterplan, the JRL was planned to be done around 2025, and other agencies may have planned around that; but at this point, it will only finish in 2029.
Other major civil engineering projects are likely to finish soon too. The PUB DTSS will complete next year, which means plenty of tunnelling engineers will be finding work. And if we don’t keep these people employed in Singapore, we may lose their expertise forever. Infrastructure investment done earlier may even be cheaper in the long run, as the government deploys capital to prop up industries which may be hurt by the coming economic storms.
The clock is ticking
In that aspect, these announcements are ambitious in scope, but not ambitious enough in workload. As an electioneering move, such an announcement may backfire; resulting in greater public criticism than enthusiasm. It probably already has, if this post is any indication.
As serious policy, it’s a race against the clock to resolve the planning questions around these projects, and hopefully, all levels of government realize the urgency at which these projects must be built. We’ve already seen it with the NEL Extension to Punggol Coast, where without JTC stepping in to help get the extension built, it would likely have opened way later.
The best case scenario being that works on these projects can actually start within the next term of government. And for that, the government must actually provide the political support in financing, policy reform, and cutting red tape, for such to happen.
It’s easy to announce projects. It’s another thing altogether to actually get them built and to make them useful.
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