Proposed Seletar MRT line could offer Sengkang, Serangoon residents quicker route to Johor Bahru: Analyst

SINGAPORE: The proposed Seletar MRT line could extend as far as Woodlands North, and offer residents in areas like Sengkang and Serangoon a quicker route to Malaysia via the Johor Bahru–Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link, said a transport analyst. 

At the same time, the tentative Tengah Line would provide an alternative rail line for those in the west, and ease demand on the ageing East-West Line. 

The proposed lines were announced by Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat in parliament on Wednesday (Mar 5). Mr Chee said that the lines, pending feasibility studies, could serve more than 400,000 households and be operational in the 2040s. 

The Seletar Line could serve areas such as Woodlands, Sembawang, Sengkang West, Serangoon North, Whampoa, Kallang and the Greater Southern Waterfront. 

The Tengah Line could serve locations such as Tengah, Bukit Batok, Queensway and Bukit Merah. These potential rail lines could meet at the Greater Southern Waterfront, and feasibility studies will look into the possibility of linking the two lines into a single line. 

Associate Professor Raymond Ong said that based on the proposed alignment of the Seletar Line, it could serve as a “major connecting point from Singapore to Johor Bahru”. 

“If we look at the Seletar Line, we see that in the northern part, we are seeing the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone, and we have the RTS there,” said the deputy head of research and enterprise at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

He said that the two lines that serve the Woodlands area close to Johor Bahru are the North-South Line (NSL) and the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), with Woodlands North on the TEL being linked to the RTS Link. 

“The NSL is getting old, and (whether the TEL has) enough (capacity), we are not too sure,” he said. 

He added that the TEL also goes through “a different kind of estate profile” as the proposed Seletar Line that could connect Sengkang and Serangoon to Johor Bahru.