S’pore-JB Checkpoints See Massive Jams On 1st Day Of School Holidays, Travellers Stuck For Hours

S’pore-JB Checkpoints See Massive Jams As School Holidays Start, Up To 4-Hour Queue Reported

Ahead of the March school holidays, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) warned Singaporeans of heavy traffic flow heading to Johor Bahru at our land checkpoints.

Despite this warning, many people evidently went ahead anyway.

So on Saturday (11 Mar), the first day of the school holidays, massive jams were predictably reported.

Some travellers said they spent hours stuck in queues.

Jams started from 10 Mar evening

In fact, the jams started from about 6pm on Friday (10 Mar) evening, according to a netizen who shared a photo of the Causeway tailback that stretched all the way to Mandai at 5.58pm.

Another motorist posted a clip of the lengthy queue at 6pm on TikTok, warning others not to exit at Woodlands Avenue 3.

At the time, the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) and other roads leading to the Causeway were packed, while it was relatively empty in the other direction.

It was the same story at the Second Link, with an estimated 2.5 hours wait to enter JB.

Jams start early at checkpoints as school holidays start

On Saturday (11 Mar), the first weekend of the school holidays, the jams started early.

At 7.37am in the morning, a woman complained that she had already waited two hours on the road, and was still only 1km away from the Woodlands Customs Checkpoint.

Sure enough, a user in the Checkpoints Singapore & Malaysia Telegram channel said at 8am that they’d been stuck at the Woodlands jam since 6am.

At 8.38am, the jam from the Second Link was reportedly up to four hours long.

A motorist confirmed this, saying after being stuck for more than four hours, he was still 100m away from the checkpoint.

At 10.20am, both directions of the Causeway were now packed, with traffic seemingly at a standstill.

Customs queue for non-drivers too

Those who might have ditched their cars, thinking it would be faster, also ended up waiting.

At 10.53am, a netizen shared that the queue to enter Malaysia at JB’s Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex was also long, with the hall packed with people.

At 11.20am, the crowd hadn’t been cleared yet, with the hall still full of people.

Heavy traffic lasts till evening

At 6.15pm on Saturday, the ICA, which had been giving updates on the situation, said the heavy traffic at the Tuas Checkpoint had subsided.

However, the departure traffic at the Woodlands Checkpoints was still “very heavy”.

They estimated the wait would be up to three hours, and advised travellers to postpone non-essential travel to Malaysia.

The tailback at Woodlands subsided only at 8.45pm, ICA said.

That marked more than one day of congestion at our checkpoints.

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Featured image adapted from Mat Schrödinger on Facebook and Rosinah Sukaima on Facebook.