SINGAPORE: After years of construction, Stage 4 of the , Thomson- East Coast Line ( TEL4 ) will soon be in operation, serving residents in areas such as Tanjong Rhu, Marine Parade, Siglap and Bayshore.
It’s an executive achievement, as the collection was built through , some older estates in the East Coast region that never had rail connectivity.
In a region close to where property was reclaimed, the soil content was problematic. Additionally, the MRT tunnels are quite close to the current Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE).
These factors made construction particularly challenging, said the , Land Transport Authority ( LTA ) as its engineers provided some insight on Monday ( May 20 ) into what it took to make TEL4 a reality.
The seven channels- Tanjong Rhu, Katong Park, Tanjong Katong, Marine Parade, Marine Terrace, Siglap and Bayshore - , did begin customer service on Jun 23.
As the MRT caves are nearer to many , shops, HDB stones, apartments and private components,  , interruptions for highways and utilities such as electrical cables were a common occurrence.  ,
LTA had to conduct impact studies and communicate with local stakeholders as early as a year in advance of some of these deviations.  ,
According to LTA senior project engineer Lee Yang,” We were able to build the stations and tunnels with minimal inconvenience to the surrounding stakeholders due to the density of the built-up area, careful and detailed planning of the station and tunnels alignment was crucial.”  ,
One instance of this was the construction of the Marine Parade station. It is close to , Parkway Parade shopping mall, a hotel, HDB estates, health facilities and several landed housing estates.
Therefore, the station’s construction required an extensive relocation of existing utilities, including power cables, telecom cables, and water pipes, according to LTA senior project engineer Chantal Lee.
” At the same time, we had to ensure that the (utilities ) still continue serving the establishment while the works are being carried out”, she added.
Although the procedure for diverting utilities typically calls for a single-lane road closure, it was unsafe to do this because Marine Parade was too busy and the surrounding areas were already too dense.  ,
So, in order to facilitate the moving of utilities, a section of Joo Chiat Road was closed for about seven months in 2018.  ,
This was done after a detailed traffic impact assessment, including adjustments to public bus services.  ,  ,