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If you reside in Woodlands and are looking to reach northeast Singapore in a jiffy, you might be able to do so from the 2040s with the opening of the new Seletar MRT Line.
The new Seletar MRT Line could serve areas ranging from Woodlands, Sembawang, Sengkang West, Serangoon North and Kallang to the Greater Southern Waterfront.
The other, tentatively called the Tengah Line, could supplement the network in the west and northwest, covering areas including Tengah, Bukit Batok, Queensway and Bukit Merah.
The 2 lines could benefit more than 400,000 households, said Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat in Parliament on Wed (5 Mar) as part of his ministry’s spending plans for Budget 2025.
Based on LTA’s initial studies, the lines could intersect at the Greater Southern Waterfront.
Investing to strengthen rail reliability
With Singapore’s rail network growing, Mr Chee acknowledged the increasing difficulty of maintaining reliability standards. This is especially so given a mix of old and new rail lines.
Hence, the government will invest up to S$1 billion (US$742 million) over the next 5 years. This will go into improving condition monitoring systems to enable more proactive and targeted maintenance. It will also fund workforce training and upskilling programmes.
Updates on ongoing rail projects
Mr Chee also gave some updates on the West Coast Extension that the LTA had been studying. The extension will bridge the upcoming Jurong Region Line (JRL) and the Circle Line (CCL).
The project will be done in 2 phases. Phase 1, due to be completed by the late 2030s, will extend the JRL from Pandan Reservoir station to link with the Cross Island Line (CRL) at West Coast station.
Phase 2 is expected to wrap up by the early 2040s and will further extend the JRL from West Coast station to Kent Ridge station. This will connect it to the CCL.
The extension could cut commute times by up to 20 minutes for those in the west heading towards the city centre.
Hume station on the Downtown Line (DTL) opened last month. New stations or lines will be added every year till the end of this decade, said Mr Chee.
Station upgrades on North-South & East-West Lines
As the North-South and East-West Lines have been operating for over 3 decades, LTA has been tasked to look into a multi-year programme to rejuvenate the stations on these lines.
Yishun MRT Station, one of the older stations, will be the pilot project for this programme.
Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Baey Yam Keng said that in recent years, the station has become busier. The number of commuters is expected to increase further as surrounding developments are completed. Studies will be conducted to see if the platform can be extended to ease crowding.
“We may add escalators, lifts and access points to facilitate the flow of commuters,” he added, “Upgrades to the bus stop and new covered linkways will also be explored.”
