Concept Planning & MRT Dreaming at Deadpoet’s Cave

A few days ago, I came across URA’s Concept Plan 2001 via a forum detailing the changing local skyline. There was something deeply worrying about the plan.

Keeping Rustic Areas

Unlike the 1991 Concept Plan that envisaged new towns at Pulau Ubin and Lim Chu Kang, the Concept Plan 2001 aims to keep these and other areas rustic for as long as possible.

Concept Plan 2001: Recreation

All well and good, except for a road bisecting Pulau Ubin. The island doesn’t need a whole bunch of mainlanders invading it. Part of its rustic charm is the fact that you there aren’t so many people on the island and that you can get away from city life for a while. Increased human traffic and activity won’t do one of our last vestiges of rural life any good.

If there’s a road through Pulau Ubin, we might as well build a Tropical Rainforest/Mangrove-themed IR there. Then the army guys can drive over after booking out from Tekong (refer to the concept plan map, if you’ve not done so already) for a havoc night out. *shudder*

I continued reading the Concept Plan. According to the plan, our rail lines now total 93 km. This is set to increase to approximately 500 km.

You read that right: five hundred kilometers of MRT lines.

In my effort to understand how this will be possible, I read Wikipedia’s entry for Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit system. In it, there was this gem of a diagram by Calvin Teo*.

Looks familiar, yet looks different, yes?

It’s a mix of inferences and speculation. While I’m not sure about 500 km, I’m sure there’ll be at least double to triple the length of existing tracks. Pretty amazing stuff. I remember when the MRT first opened, there were only five stations, between Toa Payoh and Yio Chu Kang.

Perhaps it’s time for a Transport Museum in Singapore?

*I realise that his map is derived from the one we see in MRT stations and trains. Still, Calvin’s shown tremendous effort in researching the possibilities and creating the diagram, so I’m sharing it here. Out of interest, the current diagrammatic representation of our rail lines is heavily borrowed (or likely licensed) from Transport for London’s famous Tube Map.