All That You Need to Know About the North-South Corridor
The North-South Corridor is the proposed expressway that will connect the city to the northern region of Singapore. It will not be your normal expressway, but rather an integrated transport corridor that will include cycling trunk routes as well as the continuous bus lanes; the first of its kind in Singapore.
The North-South Corridor Fact Sheet
- A 21.5 km route integrated transport corridor to connect the north region to the city
- It is built with not only vehicles in mind but also pedestrians and cyclists thanks to its cycling trunk routes
- It consists of twin three lanes with twin 4-lanes between CTE and PIE
- It has 16 pairs of ramps
Original Idea – The North-South Expressway
The initial idea was to build it as a 21.5 km North-South expressway covering the same route – the 11th of its kind. The North-South expressway was announced in January 2008, and the idea was that it would take over from the Central Expressway and help alleviate the increasing traffic between the northern areas and the city.
The announcement was part of the review of Singapore’s transport system by the Land Transport Authority, and the completion date of the expressway was set for 2023.
In April of 2016, the Land Transport Authority announced that the North-South Expressway would be redesigned to be the North-South Corridor with cyclers and pedestrians set to benefit from it too.
Commencement of Work
Advanced works on the North-South Corridor commenced in 2013, and the major construction works were scheduled to start in 2017. The completion date for the integrated transport corridor, on the other hand, was set for 2026.
However, reports coming from the Land Transport Authority as of April 2017 indicated that the commencement of the advanced expressway has been delayed to 2018, rather than the originally preferred 2017.
Delays
More time required to finalize the corridor’s plan is being cited as the cause of the delay, which is understandable considering it was modified from the relatively straightforward vehicular expressway to the more inclusive integrated transport corridor it is to be.
Despite the delay in commencement, the Land Transport Authority maintains that the 2026 completion date is still viable and is still the official completion target date.
Current State
As of April 2017, the Land Transport Authority had called a tender to award the initial civic contract. The winner of the said tender is expected to design as well as construct 1 km of vehicular tunnels stretching to Novena Rice from Suffolk Walk.
Additionally, the first civic contract covers the construction of surface-level commuter infrastructure including bus stops, covered linkways as well as cycling paths.
The civil contractor will also be tasked with designing and rebuilding two pedestrian subways in Novena. The Land Transport Authority plans to give out the remaining civic contracts in the next few weeks so that the commencement can start in 2018.
Completion
Once the highly anticipated integrated transport corridor is completed, its dedicated bus lanes – serving express bus services – are expected to reduce transport time from northern towns to the city by up to 30 minutes. Affected towns include Yishun, Ang Mo Kio, Woodlands and Sembawang.
Cyclists too are allowed to be excited by this novel expressway in Singapore, as they can use the dedicated cycling path to cycle into the city. The dedicated cycling path is a trunk route that links the cycling complex along the North-South Corridor. It will connect to park connector Networks (PCN) as well as to the out-and-out cycling path networks located in the towns located along the corridor.
