FIVE stations on the new Circle Line will open to the public on May 30, which is slightly earlier than expected.
The five stations are Marymount, Bishan, Lorong Chuan, Serangoon and Bartley. The stations were originally planned to open in June. -- ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANGThis was announced by Transport Minister Raymond Lim in Parliament on Thursday.
The five stations are Marymount, Bishan, Lorong Chuan, Serangoon and Bartley. The stations were originally planned to open in June.
Bishan and Serangoon stations are interchange stations. Commuters can transfer to the north-south line at Bishan and change to the north-east line at Serangoon.
The rest of the Circle Line, which has 29 stations in all, will start operations progressively from 2010. When it is fully up and running, it will help reduce 10 to 15 per cent of the commuter trips currently made on existing lines.
Besides the Circle Line, the Transport Ministry has also brought forward the opening dates of two other rail projects. The north-south line extension to Marina South will open in 2014 instead of 2015, while a plan to add an extra platform and track to Jurong East MRT will be completed in 2011 instead of 2012.
The changes to Jurong East will help ease a bottleneck at the station, where trains from Bukit Batok terminate at before turning around. As there is only one track and one platform for these trains, a second train would have to wait before pulling into Jurong East.
With an extra platform and track, train headways along the busiest stretches of the north-south line will drop to about two minutes from the current two to three minutes. This will lead to a 15 per cent increase in capacity.
Besides changes to infrastructure, the ministry will also purchase 22 new trains, which are needed to cut waiting times.
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