The road ahead (to new MRT lines)
We need to build, but what does the road look like?
Understandably, as part of the next Masterplan, speculation is starting about what new MRT lines may be part of that Masterplan. Perhaps the initiatives proposed in URA’s land use plans — not only 2022’s Long Term Plan, but also the upcoming Draft Masterplan, may tell us what land use needs will these new MRT lines support.
Without land use, where is the transport demand coming from? As the TEL’s disappointing ridership numbers show, relieving existing lines won’t be enough to support the building of new high capacity MRT lines.
And even after we decide what to build, we must also ask what it will take to actually get things built.
I must be clear that for the rest of these post, this is conjecture from observations of past timelines and publicly available information; and must not be taken as official information from the LTA.
Build it and will they come?
The current issues with our MRT network lie in utility. While there is much hand-wringing over the high capacity lines, and the Circle Line between Paya Lebar and Kent Ridge, the rest of the medium-capacity lines aren’t the same. CCL Stage 5 along West Coast and Telok Blangah isn’t doing well. The DTL barely runs enough service to meet the needs of the downtown segment, looking at the state of reverse-peak traffic on the outer edges of the line. And the TEL has barely reached half its initial ridership target, let alone the long term goal of one million.
Perhaps we may have to be so bold as to set a rail ridership target for 2040 once ongoing rail expansion projects are completed, to properly chart out what needs to be done. Not only can a target help set goals for improving the utility of the rail network we already have, it also avoids making new projects repeat our past mistakes.
I‘ll throw out a number: 6 million daily MRT riders by 2040.
That’s a lot — close to double 2024’s rail ridership of 3.41 million. 6 million may not be that unrealistic, not only if we build new lines, but if we also make the most out of our existing ones. Existing initiatives, if successful, can push us past the 4 million riders mark. It may also be possible to make significant inroads towards 5 million daily MRT riders; that would eclipse Hong Kong’s MTR in daily patronage, which is nearly 5 million.
The planned opening of CCL Stage 6, TEL5 and DTL3e, and RTS Link in 2026 should improve utility. Not much of a reason to take a bus from Pasir Panjang to Tanjong Pagar when CCL6 gets you to Prince Edward Road and Promenade stations directly. The TEL + DTL connection through Sungei Bedok station allows people to get from Marine Parade to Tampines, using reverse peak capacity as what goes down must come up. The RTS Link also reduces bus patronage, as those who took feeder bus 913 or something from the Train Checkpoint now take the TEL one stop instead, and could perhaps stay on the TEL to town.
Similarly, JRL and CRL riders will not appear out of thin air. JRL Stage 1 should convert through passengers from service 974, and Boon Lay/Jurong West feeder bus passengers, doing something about bus congestion at Boon Lay interchange. JRL2 passengers likely today take bus 870 from Tengah or the many routes through Pandan Gardens. And the CRL will not only cannibalize buses; it will also take away existing NSEWL and Circle Line passengers heading to Jurong and Tuas.
EDIT: In the long term, the CRL may serve more than 1 million passengers a day. And the JRL will eventually serve over half a million.
All these may mean that increasing MRT patronage may look more like a war on bus riders, instead of attracting car drivers to take the train. But it may not be enough just to build new MRT lines, we must also improve our rail passenger experience to attract passengers, not just build them to raise property values. There is still a role for buses: to support rail developments, not supplant it.
A 2001 odyssey
How do we then get from 5 million to 6 million?
Much of the rail lines we’re building now, and some we haven’t yet built, were first teased in the Concept Plan 2001. They disappeared in the Concept Plan 2011 and the Long Term Plan 2022, but it’s not hard to imagine that those plans still guide where to place MRT provisions for potential future lines, like at CR16 Maju station.
Concept Plan 2001 is likely where most people got the idea of the Seletar-Holland Line and Northshore Line. Adding to the talk is announced plans for land development in the Seletar industrial estate and overall redevelopment near Sembawang Shipyard, apart from existing industrial transport needs between Woodlands North and Senoko
And there are transport needs to address in the northeast, where land use has been allowed to get far ahead of transport provision. Buses stuck in traffic are likely only popular because of car ownership restrictions, and to drive long term public transport usage, rail capacity is needed there.
Interestingly, Concept Plan 2001 also shows what is now the CRL, and that section of the supposed Seletar line, interchanging in the vicinity of the modern Tavistock station — in the Long Term Plan, an “Ang Mo Kio and Sengkang West” employment area is plotted in the general area. What is today low-density industrial may be redeveloped into high-density development once the CRL, at least, is open.
Similarly, within the Circle, the Long Term Plan calls for the eventual development of Pasir Panjang Terminal as part of the overall Greater Southern Waterfront project. Jalan Bukit Merah is also densifying and it’s not entirely near the EWL either. There’s also much potential for growth in Kolam Ayer and Kallang, with largely empty fields around Bendemeer station. Something may happen at Nicoll Highway too.
Many of these coincidentally fall along the 2019 Masterplan’s 9th MRT line. Yet, the middle section from Seletar to the Circle Line and Toa Payoh may mostly pass through places where people drive anyway — it may weaken the business case, if they don’t find a way to draw meaningful traffic from the north and northeast. They might — according to the LTA, 400k households stand to benefit from such a line if built.
Getting it done
The harder part may be actually delivering.
The DTL2e, opening 2035, will be under construction for 10 years. As the 2019 Masterplan had a planning horizon of 2040, that gives us space to progressively finish the 9th MRT line, from after 2035 to around 2030.
We know from the DTL2e and maybe Brickland station that engineering studies can take at least 3–4 years. Feasibility studies for the JRL started as far back as around government financial year 2013/14. Around FY 2016/17, advance engineering studies began, leading up to the announcement of station locations in May 2018.
After that, we can take the CRL Punggol Extension as an example. Pre-qualification to evaluate contractors and prepare for the actual contracting exercise took place in 2021 — long after the station announcement, maybe because the pandemic response ground LTA’s contract tendering activities to a halt. Typically, though, pre-qualification happens around the same time as the station announcement; it can even be before, like for CRL2 and DTL2e, with prospective contractors signing non-disclosure agreements.
This phase ended when Contract P102 for Elias station was only awarded in 2023. In the rest of 2023, the appointed contractor developed the final design, and started clearing worksites. This was a change since the JRL, where previously the LTA fully handled design works. and contractors only built out what was done by the LTA.
Major construction activities only began in late 2023 on the overall extension, and true to the planned timeline, diaphragm wall works for building the station structure were seen to be underway in August 2024. From here, heavy construction works are estimated to take the next 4–5 years and finish in 2029. Systems installation work will then take place from 2029 to 2031, and train testing will occur throughout 2031 and perhaps 2032. Then, the CRL Punggol Extension opens in 2032.
Tunnelling finishes in 2028, but it’s not unheard of for tunnelling to finish so early — CCL6 tunnelling finished in January 2022, 4 years before it will open in 2026.
This timeline is on the higher end of typical, but may be a good reference for building a new rail alignment in downtown Singapore. TEL3 was announced in 2012 to open in 2021; yes it was delayed, but considering what happened on the way there, the estimate can still be useful.
For the 9th MRT line, the question is when the LTA is along the alignment study process now. Even if the advance engineering study phase starts this year, it could only finish in 2028, with an announcement around that time. 10–11 years of active construction from 2028 may mean the line only opens in 2038–39.
I hope that’s a worst case scenario.
The need for speed
That’s a long way away; the PAP may lose power by 2039, and if it did, I won’t be surprised if this pace of development, with no quick relief in sight for the existing network, was a reason why.
Minister Chee may be right when he says it takes two decades of work to get a new MRT line built. The question is whether his ministry has pursued reform in the LTA, and/or in financing, to finish projects quicker. Something may have been done with relatively smaller projects like new MRT trains or even Hume station (opening next week, ahead of the Q2 2025 target), but is it sustainable and will it last?
And will it scale to multibillion dollar, decade-long infrastructure projects? Miracles can happen, like if they suddenly announce the West Coast Extension, but that may only be because the groundwork has already been laid in the last 10 years.
Costs also need to be kept under control so we can build more MRT for the same amount of money. A $60 billion figure was thrown around in 2020 to be spent on rail expansion efforts “this decade”. That number resurfaced in PM Lawrence Wong’s 2025 Budget Statement, though I’m not sure if it’s restating 2020’s commitment, or new funding sources opened up. And is that new funding for new projects, or cost overruns on existing ones? Maybe the government could sell infrastructure bonds to banks flush with deposits, or take advantage of extra income from 6-digit COE prices.
And it’s not just cost problems. Express bus routes promised under the BCEP may work in the interim, but we will run out of bus drivers before we run out of money, because after all, who wants to drive a bus?
In short, there is no real alternative to the timely and ambitious expansion of the rail network. The government’s political survival may depend on it.
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