Kallang-Payar Lebar Expressway To Open On Friday

Source : Channel NewsAsia, 24 October 2007

The Kallang-Payar Lebar Expressway (KPE) is set to open this Friday after six years of construction.

In the building of this underground road project, the Geylang River had to be dammed, diverted and then re-diverted onto its original path.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) also used multiple waterproofing elements in the part of the tunnel running under the river.

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Kallang-Payar Lebar Expressway to open on Friday

Part of the construction work has been captured by the LTA in the form of a documentary, which will be aired on Channel NewsAsia on Thursday night.

The documentary includes, among others, the challenges faced by the engineers and the solutions they used. It describes the biggest challenge as diverting the Geylang River while the construction was taking place.

Even with cutting-edge technology, engineers had to manage the risks of digging below Geylang River.

"Anything below ground is a risk," said Marcus Karakashian, LTA's director of KPE. "It does not matter if you are one metre below ground. We are going 25 metres below ground."

Another problem was the ground that the tunnel was being built in.

"One of the key challenges is the soil condition in the east," said Tammie Loke, the deputy group director of LTA's corporate communications. "As one project manager puts it, the soil consistency is like toothpaste."

The documentary also highlights the tunnel's security features: emergency doors that open to allow ambulances and fire engines through to the other side. In the case of a fire, giant fans can be activated to swiftly extract smoke.

The LTA is running a safety campaign so motorists will know what to do when travelling through the three-kilometre tunnel.

The campaign includes safety habits like switching on the headlights and not stopping their vehicles in the tunnel.

This whole week on MediaCorp Radio, songs from a KPE Safety music CD will be aired, emphasising safe driving in the tunnel with lyrics like "don't you try and overtake" and "look at the signs".

The entire expressway will be fully operational by the end of 2008.

Catch the first building phase of Southeast Asia's longest underground expressway in the documentary on Channel NewsAsia on Thursday at 9.32pm. - CNA/yb