Cost of Building and Maintaining Covered and High Covered Linkways and Coordinating Sheltered Walkway Planning and Accessibility Infrastructure Across Agencies

Written Reply to Parliamentary Question

Mr Cai Yinzhou asked the Minister for Transport

a.          for each of the past five years, what is the cost of building (i) covered linkways and (ii) high covered linkways;

b.          what is the annual cost of maintaining them; and

c.           whether LTA will coordinate the planning, building and maintenance of all sheltered walkways and accessibility infrastructure within towns, including those currently undertaken by HDB and Town Councils.

Reply by Minister for Transport Jeffrey Siow

1.          A covered linkway costs around $5 million per kilometre to build, while a single high covered linkway costs around $1.5 million each. These costs can vary depending on site-specific works, such as the diversion of underground utilities. Annual maintenance costs average about $5,000 per 100 metres.

2.          The Land Transport Authority (LTA) coordinates with Town Councils and the Housing Development Board (HDB) to plan, build, and maintain covered linkways that it is responsible for, which connect to transport infrastructure, pedestrian overhead bridges (POBs) and nearby amenities.