Mr Speaker Sir,
The massive breakdown on the East-West Line between Buona Vista and Jurong East MRT stations between 25 and 30 September reminded Singaporeans living in the West of Singapore, of how reliant they are on the East-West Line.
This 6-day breakdown also happened to coincide with the PSLE exams and the announcement that Singapore’s population exceeded 6 million for the first time.
When it comes to rail connectivity, the East side of Singapore is definitely better than the West side. The East now has 3 rail lines that connect it to the Downtown Core namely the East-West Line, Downtown Line and Thomson-East Coast Line.
These three lines run parallel to each other all the way from the Downtown Core until Tanah Merah. This does not exist in the West. Had the East-West Line failed in the East instead, residents would have more options compared to those living in the West.
During the 6-day disruption, residents in Jurong West who were travelling to and from their workplaces downtown had no alternative option to get them most of their way home by MRT.
They would either have to use the bus bridging services replacing the MRT or endure long bus rides on buses such as services 174 or 502. As a result, many residents have complained that it took them more than 3 hours to commute during the initial days of the breakdown.
In 2019, the LTA has set an ambitious goal in the Land Transport Master Plan 2040 (Master Plan 2040) that Singapore should be a 45-minute city, where Singaporeans should spend no more than 45 minutes to complete 9 out of 10 peak-period journeys.
The 6-day disruption prompted us to ask whether the Master Plan 2040 is sufficient to make a 45-minute city a reality for residents of the West even if everything is operating normally and all the plans in the Master Plan 2040 come into fruition.
The Government will argue that the upcoming Jurong Region Line and Cross-Island Line will improve connectivity in the West. But even after these two lines are built, the East-West Line will still be a major bottleneck for travel between the East and West of Singapore for residents of the West. For example, the Jurong Region Line connects only to the East-West Line for east-west travel.
The West of Singapore is not some ‘ulu’ hinterland. It is home to very dense population centres such as Jurong West, upcoming new towns such as Tengah, and major employment hubs in Jurong East and Tuas. Existing towns such as Queenstown and Bukit Merah will also soon be redeveloped and densified, and many new jobs will be created in the Jurong Lake District. All these residents and jobs need to be better connected to the rest of Singapore.
Currently, for a resident of Choa Chu Kang, Bukit Batok, Pioneer, or Jurong West working somewhere in the Downtown Core like Raffles Place, a 45-minute commute by public transport to their workplace is still far from reality.
This is very different from the East where entire new towns such as Marine Parade and Bedok and even parts of Tampines are accessible from the Downtown Core within 45 minutes.
And on top of the Downtown Core, we must also strengthen connections from the West to other parts of Singapore as well. With decentralisation and greater job mobility, residents of the West could find themselves working in the Punggol Digital District or Changi Business Park.
While a 45-minute commute may never be feasible for them because of sheer distance, we can do more to reduce their commuting times as much as possible.
Today I would like to suggest two approaches to improve rail connectivity and bus services to relieve residents in the West from their dependence on the East-West Line, so that we can be closer to realising the vision of a 45-minute city in the West.
The first approach is to improve rail connectivity for the West by connecting the Jurong Region Line to the Circle Line and Cross Island Line. There have been two unconfirmed proposals regarding this.
The first proposal is to extend the Jurong Region Line from Pandan Reservoir to Haw Par Villa on the Circle Line. This will allow residents in Tengah, Bukit Batok West, Ayer Rajah, and West Coast to travel to the Downtown Core by MRT with just one transfer at Haw Par Villa. It could also benefit students travelling to and from NUS.
This proposal was first announced by then-Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew in 2015. Later, in 2022, then-Transport Minister S Iswaran updated that feasibility studies are still ongoing, even though this potential extension appears to have been dropped out of the Master Plan 2040.
The second proposal is to build an interchange infrastructure to connect Jurong Town Hall station on the Jurong Region Line with Jurong Lake District station on the Cross Island Line. These two stations are within walking distance of each other but are not currently planned to be connected as an interchange.
In September 2022, Minister S Iswaran said that the authorities would study this as “we need to create meaningful interconnections in our MRT system for convenience and resilience”.
These two proposals to extend the Jurong Region Line will greatly increase rail connectivity from the West to the Downtown Core and the rest of Singapore. We hope the Government will update us on these proposals today.
The second approach to improve public transport in the West is to introduce a network of inter-town skip-stop bus services. This can also be implemented relatively quickly compared to increasing rail connectivity.
These skip-stop services would be different from existing express bus services. They will only stop at a few high-demand stops in each town throughout the entire route to allow commuters to connect between towns more quickly. They will also run all-day in both directions at good frequency. The existing routes that stop at all stops can be retained to feed commuters from the lesser-demand stops to the high-demand stops.
Broadly, we think that two types of skip-stop bus services should be introduced. The first type is the long distance skip-stop bus services that connect different towns in Singapore.
In the West, we currently have Services 30 and 143, which provide important inter-town connections for residents of Teban Gardens, Pandan Gardens, and West Coast, which are areas currently not served by the MRT, to the East and Central Singapore. There are also bus services such as 180 and 974, which link Bukit Panjang with Boon Lay and Jurong West.
All these are important long distance inter-town bus services that complement our MRT network, but they are too slow. Basic bus services travel at about 15 km per hour, about half the speed of the MRT. While we currently have faster express buses like Service 30e, many of them only operate during peak hours.
What we need is a network of skip-stop buses to complement the MRT in moving people between towns quickly. This is especially important for areas currently not served by the MRT.
The second type of skip-stop services is to connect more far-flung areas to key transport nodes and community hubs faster. These may be similar to the “express feeder” bus services that LTA is going to introduce under the Bus Connectivity Enhancement Plan (BCEP).
For example, we should introduce skip-stop service 870e to connect Tengah with Jurong East MRT, and a skip-stop service 871e to connect Tengah with Bukit Gombak MRT and Beauty World MRT. These will be much faster than the current services 870 and 871. We can also introduce a bus service linking Tengah and Boon Lay, which is something many Tengah residents have asked for during our engagement with them.
PSP urges LTA to seriously consider using BCEP as an opportunity to boldly reimagine our bus system. This should be done at a national level but it is especially important in the West where rail connectivity is not as good as the East but the population is fast building up.
Mr Speaker, Mandarin please.
议长先生，上个月，东西线裕廊东站和波那维斯达站之间发生了史无前例的六天大规模中断。这让居住在新加坡西部，尤其是裕廊西、裕廊东和金文泰的新加坡人意识到，他们是多么依赖东西线这条关键铁路基础设施。
陆交局在2019年发布的2040陆路交通发展总蓝图中，曾设下愿景，到了2040年，新加坡将成为一个“45分钟城市”，这意味着在繁忙时段九成的公交路程还能在45分钟内完成。然而，对于西部的居民而言，这个愿景目前依然是个空想。
前进党认为，若要让西部居民达成这个愿景，政府应该落实两项仍在研究中关于裕廊区域线的提案。
第一个是将裕廊区域线从班丹蓄水池站延申到环线的虎豹别墅站，第二个是将裕廊区域线的裕廊镇大会堂站和跨岛线的裕廊湖区站衔接成一个转换站。
为了加快补充西部的地铁网络的不足，我们也建议政府在今年推出的巴士连接增强计划中，加入跳站高速巴士服务，衔接全岛各地，让西部的国人更快捷的上班和出游。
我们希望上个月的地铁大瘫痪，将激发政府更关注西部的公共交通目前不足的地方。每一个新加坡人都应该享有更好的公交服务。
Conclusion
Mr Speaker Sir,
Last month’s massive train breakdown has shown us how dependent residents of the West are on the East-West Line to get around Singapore. We hope the Government will be in favour of the proposals to link the Jurong Region Line to Circle Line and the Cross Island Line to reduce the dependency on the East West Line for residents in the West.
In addition, for more immediate relief and to complement the less developed MRT network in the West, we have recommended the Government to consider introducing a network of skip-stop bus services. This should be done at a national level but it will especially benefit residents in the West who are currently very reliant on the East-West Line.
PSP hopes that the recent unprecedented disruption will spur the Government to conduct a thorough review of the plans under the Land Transport Master Plan and Bus Connectivity Enhancement Plan to improve public transport in the West while striving to level up our public transport for the whole of Singapore.
Public transport needs to serve everyone in Singapore. We must work harder to realise the vision of a 45-minute city for all Singaporeans. Thank you.
For Country For People
