Visiting Singapore soon?
Commuters and tourists alike will have more convenient transport options traveling to, from, or even within the Eastern region of Singapore.
This, as the island city state officially opens to the public the fourth phase of its Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) in its rapidly expanding Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) network on Friday, June 21.
‘TEL4’ consists of seven stations stretching from Tanjong Rhu near the Kallang Basin all the way to Bayshore near the Bedok area, adding a total of 10.8 kilometers to the line and the greater Singaporean MRT system.
These new stations are as follows: Tanjong Rhu, Katong Park, Tanjong Katong, Marine Parade, Marine Terrace, Siglap, and Bayshore.
On Friday, members of the community from this areas will get the chance to ride trains towards these new stations for free, according to the Singapore Ministry of Transport (MOT).
Meanwhile, regular operations will begin on Sunday, June 23, with train arrival frequencies expected to be 3 minutes during peak periods and 6 minutes during off-peak hours.
Thomson-East Coast Line — colored brown in the MRT system maps of island nation — is the newest of the six current MRT lines and the fourth to be fully-built underground, having opened only in January 2020.
That year, it opened the first three stations from Woodlands North to Woodlands South, followed by the second phase from that extended the line to Caldecott interchange a year later.
Phase 3 from Stevens interchange to Gardens By The Bay station commenced in 2022.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening of the fourth phase originally scheduled for 2023 had to be pushed back to 2024.
After Bayshore, the Bedok South and Sungei Bedok stations will open in tandem as part of ‘TEL5’ or the fifth phase of the project.
At the moment, there are also unopened stations within the line’s opened sections, such as Mount Pleasant, Marina South, and the under construction infill station Founders’ Memorial located in Marina East.
In the future, the TEL is planned to be eventually extended to the upcoming Changi Airport Terminal 5, which will open some time in the next decade or so.
It will then make a loop towards the existing Changi Airport and Expo stations, before heading to its terminus at Tanah Merah interchange by 2040 — which are all currently part of the Changi branch (CGL) of the East West Line (EWL) or green line.