North South corridor

by | Dec 12, 2022

North-South corridor Singapore

Introduction:

The North-South Corridor will accommodate the increasing traffic along the North-South Corridor, which gets now served by Autopista Central (CTE). When finished in 2026, the 21-kilometer (13-mile) highway would cost between S$7 and S$8 billion as a north-south route linking the East Coast Parkway (ECP) to the northern section of Singapore.

The Singapore Rail Corridor is a 26-kilometer-long right-of-way that has been used for more than a century to route trains from the Malaysian Peninsula to Singapore. It is a continuous and seamless hall that spans the whole island of Singapore along the north-south axis, from Woodlands in the north to Tanjong Pagar in the south. The Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) railway company, which was from the Malaysian government, ceased operations in 2011. And the railway’s lands reverted to the Government of Singapore, which is now comparing its conversion to an inexperienced area for undertaking and non-vehicular commuting. The combined area of the rail hall is about 173.7 hectares – three times the size of the Botanical Gardens.

However, being a former foreign-owned rail right-of-way, the rail hall has evolved to be autonomous from the city, with very limited connectedness to the surrounding built surroundings and humanity.  Since the hall gets reopened to the public in 2012, there has been considerable speculation about the hall’s long-term viability (Peng and Hong 2011, Yong 2010). While no specific plans describing how the website online will be developed get released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). The Government of Singapore gets expressed the intention to look into the “possibility of preserving a non-stop inexperienced hyperlink alongside the Rail Corridor without affecting the development capability of the lands.”

This research looked to improve the corridor’s connectedness with the people around it by carefully placing links to the passage, such as paths, bridges, staircases, ramps, and expansions to the surrounding road network. We examined which throughout the 26-kilometer would give the highest value in boosting accessibility for residents, employees, and commuters if retrofitted with additional rail access lines. The research provides an empirical understanding of how urban activities get dispersed along the train corridor and which are most suited for incorporation into rail passageway redevelopment.

We begin by providing a brief history of the train line. The second section focuses on the corridor’s contemporary urban structure and land-use environment, including the surrounding people, stores, buses, and MRT stations. The third section describes the study’s methodology and shows potential links between the train line and the adjacent road network. We looked at how much each planned link may improve access to the train corridor for nearby homes, businesses, through stations, and commuters. The last part examines the overall impact of three scenarios that simulate varying amounts of additional infrastructure links to the train line.

Structure and vegetation management inside a wildlife corridor?

Wildlife corridors might fulfill two purposes: 

Species can be corridor residents when adequate habitat structures are necessary for animals that can roam for an extended time or transit users, where animals stay in the corridor for a short time and use it to flee. It has ramifications for vegetation structure and corridor management. Citizens access many urban green corridors, which may cause issues for corridor dwellers and wildlife passage users. Noise, lighting along walkways, and human activity within the North-south corridor can be bothersome to corridor residents. For example, birds nesting near a passage with significant human activity would have lower reproductive success.

Structure and vegetation management inside a wildlife corridor

When the amount of human activity, building structures under construction, and noise is best, it can even harm the users of passageways. The presence of transit users, including migratory species, is more frequent in corridors heavily used by people than in the occurrence of corridor inhabitants. Designing Trails for people to stroll along the very edge of the passage, occasionally dipping into the corridor to witness a river, might be one strategy to offset the impact of human activity. There would be more space for corridor residents, and less human activity would promote migratory animals.

Furthermore, data shows that the amount of natural vegetation in a corridor is associated with animal utilization for both corridor inhabitants and users. One probable explanation is that natural vegetation provides a more effective foraging and breeding habitat. As a result, protecting or restoring natural vegetation is critical to ensuring corridor functionality. Management measures include invasive alien species and planting native plants inside the corridor.

What are the effects of surrounding land uses on corridors?

Pets, noise, lights, motor vehicles, stormwater runoff, and the introduction of invasive alien species can all influence wildlife corridor use. These effects are typically caused by neighboring built-up regions, particularly in heavily inhabited places. Attention should get paid to the broader corridors establishment in these issue locations. But also to the management/education strategy in built-up areas. Involving local communities in how their property operations and corridor encroachments affect wildlife can help limit negative consequences from surrounding human places.

About the North-South Corridor (NSC):

About the North South Corridor NSC

We shall be able to utilize the 21.5 km long North-South Corridor (NSC), Singapore’s first integrated mode of transport connecting the northern sections of Singapore with Central business areas, by 2027 (estimated). Good news for those northern neighbors who are experiencing CTE problems.

A dedicated bus lane on the projected 21.5km North-South Expressway (NSE) will be a first for the island’s highways and will be welcomed, according to transportation experts. Yesterday, Transport Secretary Khaw Boon said When this is determined, the NSE will be redesigned as a “North-South Corridor” to adapt bikes, pedestrians, and bus passengers. While sidewalks and cycling lanes develop along the route, one lane will be for buses. Motorists have questioned the viability of granting a bus lane on the NSE because it was initially to ease congestion on the adjoining Central Freeway (CTE).

History of North-South Corridor (NSC):

The expressway was initially announced as a north-south expressway on January 30, 2008, as part of the Land Transport Authority‘s comprehensive evaluation of Singapore’s transportation network (LTA). The government approved the highway building between Admiralty Road West and Toa Payoh Rise on January 19, 2011. The LTA announced the entire alignment of the north-south route on November 15, 2011. The land gets acquired early to allow the owners sufficient time to relocate, and the building gets expected to begin in 2017 with a completion date of 2023.

The corridor became an integrated transport corridor in 2016, with land prepared for the north-south corridor’s development, which begins in 2018 and may finish by 2026. They started on October 2, 2020, that the main junction at Novena, which connects Newton Road, Moulmein Road, and Thomson Road, will be altered to allow highway tunnel building.

History of North South Corridor NSC

Route of the North-South Corridor (NSC):

The NSC will start at Admiralty Road West in northern Singapore and go south through 8 Woodlands Avenue, Gambas Avenue, and Sembawang Road. It will connect to Lentor Avenue and cross the Seletar Expressway. The dual carriageway tunnel at Marymount Road will get completed in tandem with the Teck Ghee station box on the upcoming Cross Island MRT line. Elevator lobbies will get installed at prime bus stops on Lentor Avenue, 6 Ang MoKio Avenue, and Marymount Road. 

It will also run past the two military training facilities of Lentor and Seletar East, which gets scheduled to be decommissioned by 2017. It runs past Toa Payoh Rise before connecting with Thomson Road and Bukit Timah Road, which run parallel to the Central Expressway. The NSC will continue along Ophir Road, eventually connecting with the East Coast Parkway. New bus and bike lanes will also get installed. The government must acquire property for the project. The Land Transportation Authority has attempted to use as much state land as possible, limiting the amount of private property that must get them. 

Although part of the motorway runs underground at its southern end, some land had to get removed due to existing Mass Rapid Transit tunnels and the need for the freeway to be straight to sustain traffic speeds. The Rochor Center is one of the significant milestones that will pave the way for the project. The Novena Square underpasses will also get removed, and the historic Ellison Building may get razed.

Route of the North South Corridor NSC

All along the route:

We concentrated our investigation on a 15-minute stroll along the train route. The census provided us with estimates of the resident population and employment. We also record the location of all bus and MRT stations inside the LTA buffer. Unfortunately, no official source made the vendor distribution available. As a result, we based our estimations on MIT SMART’s Francisco Pereira, who examined many prominent listing websites, including Yellow Pages, Google, and Yahoo, and calculated the distribution of individual business branches worldwide. 

According to this information, the population within the 1-kilometer buffer zone around the train track is roughly 620,000. Along the route, major HDB cities include Choa Chu Kang New Town, Bukit Panjang, and Queenstown. The familiar “Interlace” complex developed by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture is one example of a private residential complex. It was essential to interpolate population estimates to specific building sites for a complete accessibility analysis. We can determine which buildings in the buffer zone comprised residential and commercial uses and estimate their size thanks to a massive data processing effort that included land use and building type research. We have matched the overall resident population to specific buildings in the region.

There are roughly 8,000 business entities of all sorts and sizes in the 1 km buffer zone around the train track. We examined over 1,000 stores and 440 eateries. The buffer zone has numerous facilities, including commercial, educational, recreational, transportation, industrial, and institutional structures. A considerable concentration of retail stores can be in the southern end, at Tanjong Pagar. Large industrial complexes are often in the site’s northern reaches. Major cross highways and various public transit lines connect the catchment region to the rest of the island. There are 578 bus stops and 19 MRT/LRT stations throughout the catchment area.

Faster journeys to the city by the North-South Corridor (NSC):

The dedicated bus lanes reduce bus trips to and from the city centre by 10 to 15 minutes. It accomplishes this by utilizing exclusive and continuous bus lanes with bus-priority signage.

Faster journeys to the city by the North South Corridor NSC

The quickest trips into town are:

Once completing the NPC, tourists should enjoy smoother and quicker trips. The 21.5-kilometer-long corridor connects the city to the northern region. The corridor will also help to reduce congestion on the CTE and important arterial highways like Thomson and Marymount Road. Bus drivers may save 10-15 minutes of journey time using dedicated, continuous bus lanes and bus priority signage.

The NSC will also help mobile users and pedestrians by providing primary cycling lanes and pedestrian path. Along the line, they will be linked to the Park Connector network and local bike lanes in HDB cities, boosting connection for active mobile users and pedestrians.

During peak hours, drivers commuting between the north and downtown can anticipate saving up to 30% of their trip time using NSE.

For example, a trip from Yishun to the metropolis currently takes 30 to 35 minutes. The same travel may be completed in 20 to 30 minutes using NSE. Similarly, a trip from Bishan to the city that would ordinarily take 15-20 minutes today will now be completed in 10-15 minutes, thanks to NSE.

NSE advanced work will commence in phases beginning in 2013, with construction starting in 2015.

Critics:

Movement:

Building economic corridors necessitate massive capital expenditures and related risks, such as investing in white elephants or unjust public investment, which would compromise the interests of many small enterprises and local inhabitants to favor a few giant corporations. According to some researchers, “huge investments in corridors risk crowding out other public investments in key sectors like education, water and sanitation, and health.”

Externalities on the environment:

Some economic corridors have detrimental consequences on protected areas, forest parks, and animal sanctuaries, among other things, causing significant damage to the surrounding ecosystem and biodiversity, particularly for some endangered species. Simultaneously, air pollution, water pollution, and noise pollution created by industrial structures would harm the sensitive local environment and the lives of local inhabitants along the path. Some inhabitants who rely on agriculture may encounter issues including soil erosion and water contamination.

Migration and Relocation:

Local inhabitants will get forced to relocate or resettle if an economic corridor is through their neighborhood. It implies the loss of agricultural or industrial regions, jobs, and interpersonal interactions. The expense of adjusting to a new life is not insignificant.

Destroying historical and cultural landmarks:

Industrial structures might cause harm to cultural monuments along the route. Such damage may get inadvertent, yet it represents a significant loss to human civilization.

Other issues:

Improving roads raises the risk of traffic accidents and human trafficking. At the same time, residents along the GMS Southern Economic Corridor are concerned that the economic corridor’s construction will encourage the spread of AIDS because housing developments in the surrounding areas, and the development of industrial hotels and brothels, will provide places for sexual services.

Design of North-South Corridor:

Overview of Corridor:

Design of North South Corridor

The physical and visual interaction of the road with its surroundings is a vital component of road aesthetics. A corridor is a long, narrow passageway. While we typically associate corridors with civil works, the corridor idea also applies to highways. The approach is beneficial because it forces the designer to consider the roadway’s linear character as moving in space and time. As individuals travel through corridors, their impression of the highway and surroundings changes.

Over a distance, street segments often keep a specific character, also known as a unit of time. Areas visible for extended periods tend to gain importance in the viewer’s perception of a location. Changes in landscape character are often commonly seen near significant markers used for navigation. Landmarks might be subtle, for example, a conspicuous building, a bridge, or a crossroads. Shifts in terrain, beautiful vistas, river crossings, or views of vast bodies of water are frequently with the most dramatic changes. The visual nature of an urban corridor changes more quickly than in a rural context. It is owing to the visibly unique qualities of different neighboring land uses and the restricted space that any one land use is likely to occupy. 

Some design elements that impact aesthetic design selections in metropolitan environments are as follows:

Cultural and social influences:

What makes an acceptable design solution gets heavily influenced by social and cultural norms. The rise in population along the highway raises the possibility of a confrontation between special interests and those in charge of transportation infrastructure planning. Closer interaction with the road and related buildings results from more intense land usage. Noise and vibration, stray lights, and other highway-related issues influence land usage near the highway.

Impacts of land usage on nearby land:

The nature of the terrain gets shaped by adjacent land usage. During the design phase, a conscious decision must get whether the road should blend into or contrast with the surrounding scenery. Examining the technical qualities, cross-section, structures, and operational needs of the roadway in connection to the nature of the landscape is the basis for this choice. It is to maintain the road aesthetically neutral in residential and commercial districts. Although, it may be preferable to construct a visual difference in maximum landscapes such as industrial zones.

Visual Difficulty:

The urban environment, overtaken by a structure, gets connected by a public transportation network and services. A complex visual environment is from the combination of buildings, roads, cycling paths, signage, electricity distribution lines, lighting standards, and many others. 

Car drivers, pedestrians, and cycling routes must collect information from the visual picture relevant to their circumstances. The process of interpretation becomes more difficult as the pictorial situation grows more complicated. According to a recent study, older persons and novice drivers frequently have trouble processing and responding to visual information.

Commuters, bikers, and pedestrians should be aware of the following:

The North-South Corridor (NSC) will contain dedicated bus lanes, long-distance cycling lanes, and pedestrian lanes for commuters, active mobility users, and pedestrians. It provides a direct link from the city center to the northern area. All civil law contracts for the North-South Corridor tunnels and viaduct construction get granted, and work is presently ongoing. The job is now moving quickly. The most recent trade was for the Admiralty Road West to Sungei Seletar viaduct. Once the NPC, travelers should expect a smoother and speedier journey. The city is with the Northern Territory via a 13.5-mile corridor.

Relief from CTE:

The entire corridor will also assist in reducing congestion on the CTE and important arteries like Thomson and Marymount. It will connect to existing expressways such as the Seletar (SLE) and Pan-Island Expressway (PIE), rerouting traffic from the north to downtown.

The crucial additives consist of acting evaluation and layout assessments with impartial calculations for the following: 

The structural and geotechnical works consisting of, but no longer limited to, major and minor systems and elements, connections, deck furniture, all fixings, parapets, railings, everlasting noise barriers, claddings, and fascia, to verify the adequacy, balance, and integrity of the structural system, below numerous production series and loading conditions.

It offered demolition series at existing systems or stations, as well as verifying the sufficiency of existing systems and proposing defensive and reinforcing layout works for existing systems; and The rail viaduct bearing articulation, layout loads, and motion degrees at motion joints.

Innovative and environmentally friendly:

Singapore just topped the Smart Cities Index for the second year in a row; it has long been one of Asia’s most environmentally friendly cities. Buildings and venues use computer simulations to optimize wind energy flow and decrease heat, while innovative lighting is immediately switched off in vacant areas to cut energy use. At some sites, the city will also feature a centralized cooling system. According to Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, this would manage home temperatures and be more energy efficient than individual air conditioners, which is crucial in a country where air conditioning accounts for one-third of household energy use.

Meanwhile, automated garbage disposal Household garbage is conveyed by a conveyor system during collection, resulting in a cleaner and more sanitary living environment and reducing insect infestation. The Housing and Development Board is also exploring the idea of Tengah being an “energy smart” city in collaboration with the energy firm SP Group. SP Group intends to build a software system that optimizes energy usage and an app that allows homeowners to monitor their consumption using artificial intelligence.

Benefits of the North-South Corridor:

Regional cooperation:

Economic corridors not only connect regions and nations by providing transportation, but they also help to boost infrastructure building by developing industrial clusters that attract investment and help to expand regional economies. They are part of the infrastructure as well as the overall economic plan. “They are not alone,” Brunner continues, “since their involvement in regional economic growth can only be understood in the context of the network effects they create.”

Benefits of the North South Corridor

Economic advancement:

A well-functioning industrial cluster serves as a powerful driver for economic development initiatives. The economic corridor will connect economic growth in diverse areas, within a nation, and between adjacent countries as part of a comprehensive strategic development plan and an integrated financial network. Many expenses can get saved with economical manufacturing by cutting transportation and communication costs, seamlessly linking diverse industrial chains, and shortening delivery time. At the same time, the economic corridor can help to grow other local sectors like tourism and hotels.

Employment:

The economic corridor will stimulate the growth of local industries and regions and create 1000 local employees as an infrastructure development and building plan. Tourism, the hotel sector, catering, and other service businesses will benefit from significant growth potential. Furthermore, the transnational economic corridor will support the growth of foreign commerce. And individuals from many countries will broaden the scope of trade by taking advantage of favorable transit circumstances.

Standard of living:

The growth of employment, trade, and commerce will significantly enhance the local population’s income. Furthermore, various fundamental living amenities such as public transit, banking, medical facilities, education, and so on will get constructed. Residents can access education and medical treatment locally, especially in some isolated locations, thanks to the growth of transportation, and living circumstances have substantially improved.

Few Benefits of green corridors:

Green corridors attempt to alleviate the harmful effects of cities’ and communities’ built environments. The green corridors protect the urban environment from quick interventions and developments. More crucially, it allows for the migration of animals within cities. Wildlife conservation issues in urban settings get researched for many years and conduct research now to determine how green corridors help urban wildlife conservation. This study analyses the link between aspects of green corridors and urban wildlife dispersal behavior in the Malaysian setting by reviewing clusters of publications in urban landscape design and conservation biology.

Benefits of North-South Corridor:

As a result, the research is to learn how green corridors help animals travel and spread in metropolitan regions. It is said upfront that three aspects contribute to the colonization capability of urban wild animals: the individual, the physical, and the social. The green corridor is one of the physical variables influencing urban fauna behavioral mobility. As a result, a prospective primary corridor may be known as a security region covering animal species at any time, for example, at night.

The North-South Corridor (NSC) is necessary due to the growing number of citizens residing in Singapore’s northern and northeastern regions and their daily commutes. The NSC was initially to be a motorway, but it now changes into Singapore’s first integrated transport corridor, complete with dedicated bus routes and long-distance cycling lanes.

Faster bus travel and express bus services will benefit commuters. Cyclists will also benefit from the city’s designated bike lanes, while pedestrians will appreciate the corridor’s broad, shaded paths.

The government understands the significance of safeguarding and conserving our legacy and history. As a result, beginning in 2016, we performed comprehensive research, including consultations with conservation professionals, engineering companies, and heritage groups, to determine how best to minimize the damage to the Ellison Building, which will be one of nine impacted apartments.

Although it was not feasible to avoid the building when erecting the NSC, the new plan will include the most distinguishing features of the impacted unit, such as the roof dome and the majority of the facade. Once completing of the NPC tunnel gets constructed, the impacted area will get reconstructed, and the building’s historical characteristics will get restored.

Because of enhanced accessibility, Singapore’s green corridor may now be enjoyed not just by the almost 500,000 residents and employees of the approximately 4,000 businesses in the local region. But also as a popular recreational, hiking, and cycling trail for all Singaporeans. It is to build beautiful landscaping and inviting public areas along the corridor to capitalize on this potential. But it is also critical to enhance access to and from the north-south passage. So that a maximum and equitable share of users may get reached, its analysis has concentrated on travels between nearby locations and the train corridor. But we have not adequately addressed journeys along the corridor.

It requires more investigation. Traveling along the corridor is a vital opportunity for commuting to or from work while passing through a beautiful green environment and providing lots of room for recreational activities on weekends or weekdays. The agent looks to be a strong contender for the LTA’s public bike-sharing scheme, which gets discussed now. Keeping a portion of the corridor as a dirt road would provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get dirty on a beautiful, natural within the heart of one of Southeast Asia’s major cities. A Follow-up study is needed to determine whether people would switch from public transit or driving to the corridor if proper bike lanes, pathways, and alternate means of transportation were along the corridor.

The Future Cities:

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Cities program intends to assist cities in rethinking their post-pandemic economic recovery plans and creating a more sustainable and resilient future for their residents.

The program urges the public to work privately on solutions to COVID-19’s political, economic, and social difficulties, as well as the new policy frameworks and instruments for better planning.

For example, the Alliance G20 Smart Cities Global Summit together government agencies, corporate sector partners, and people to establish shared principles for the responsible and ethical use of smart city technologies.

Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum’s “Shaping the Future of the Internet of Things and Urban Transformation” initiative is hard at work. It brings together more than 100 worldwide partners to enable the deployment of connected devices and new technologies to build a more sustainable, prosperous, and resilient future for all.

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