Cross Island Line Begins Construction, New Stations Have S’poreans Saying We Won’t Need Cars Soon

Construction Beings On Phase 1 Of Cross Island Line

Construction on the Cross Island Line (CRL), Singapore’s latest MRT line, began today (18 Jan), the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced.

Phase 1 (CRL1) will have 12 stations that should finish construction by 2030.

With interchanges spanning from east to west, Singaporeans will have so much connectivity that some mused about not needing cars when the CRL opens.

Cross Island Line construction begins with ground-breaking ceremony

LTA marked the start of construction with a ground-breaking ceremony officiated by Minister for Transport S Israwan at the site of the future CRL Bright Hill station.

The new line will stretch more than 50km when it’s complete, comprising interchanges at Pasir Ris, Hougang, Ang Mo Kio, and Bright Hill in Phases 1 and 2.

All four are part of existing MRT lines in the north, northeast, and west.

LTA said it’s progressively calling tenders for CRL Phase 2, which will contain six stations from Turf City to Jurong Lake District. Meanwhile, engineering studies are ongoing for Phase 3.

8 in 10 households will have MRT station within 10-minute walk

The CRL will make it so that eight in 10 households have an MRT station within a 10-minute walk, Mr Iswaran said.

In addition, there will be shorter journeys. For instance, one can reach Pasir Ris from Bright Hill station in just 30 minutes, compared to 80 minutes currently.

At Bright Hill station, there will also be a connection to the Transit Priority Corridor (TPC) along Sin Ming Avenue.

LTA said it’ll include a dedicated bus lane, new cycling paths, and wider footpaths.

There will be an expected daily ridership of 600,000 when Phase 1 opens in 2030, which will increase to more than 1 million with the other phases.

As such, the CRL will eventually be able to fit eight-car trains instead of the six-car ones in use elsewhere, to accommodate the larger ridership in future.

In the initial stages, the CRL will use six-car trains, which will be housed at Changi East Depot.

The Operations Control Centre and maintenance facilities for up to 70 CRL trains will be there.

Challenges building CRL1

LTA said there’ll be various challenges while building CRL1.

Height restrictions and challenging soil conditions are two of them, as well as constructing under ‘live’ traffic and manoeuvring around existing building structures.

To help with this, LTA will deploy a rectangular Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to construct underground linkways at CR12 Teck Ghee station to minimise surface settlement.

These large-diameter TBMs will also be used to construct various tunnels, including ones between Aviation Park station and Loyang station.

“This will be the largest tunnel boring machine to be deployed on an LTA rail project and it is expected to increase work productivity and reduce manpower requirements,” LTA said.

Singaporeans looking forward to more connectivity

Singapore already has a pretty sophisticated public transport system, but the CRL and upcoming Jurong Region Line will make it even more so, especially for areas that aren’t as well-connected.

Some netizens even enthused about not needing a car in the near future.

However, the MRT map has left others confused since the amount of stations is only increasing, and interchanges everywhere seemingly don’t help.

Regardless, having an MRT station near so many homes is undoubtedly a benefit, no matter how confusing the map may appear.

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Featured image adapted from Land Transport Authority.