Remarks by Minister Khaw Boon Wan during Visit to Cheng San Railway Noise Barriers

Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,

1.     This is not an insignificant project. While it is not multi-billion dollars, it is multi-million dollars and it will last several years, inconveniencing quite a number of people. I thought we owe the residents whom we are disturbing, a full explanation. Thank you for joining me in this visit. Allow me to explain the significance of what you are seeing today.

Noise Barriers for the NSEWL

2.     As you know, we built the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL) 30 years ago in the 80s. Although Singapore was already developing rapidly at that time, public finances had not yet caught up. The Government of the day had to think real hard about whether we really want to build an MRT network. Some of you in the audience may remember the big debate that MM Lee – or PM Lee at that time – organised over TV, where he set up two teams of debaters: one arguing for “let’s not build MRT, instead let’s build an all-bus system, cheaper, faster, more flexible”, against a team that argued for “no, I think for a city, we need an MRT”. I was a young officer in civil service then so we watched the TV debate and the subsequent media discussions quite closely because it lasted many days. MM Lee, then PM Lee, is a very thorough political leader, and he wanted Singaporeans to fully understand what this was all about, i.e. building an MRT would cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and he wanted all the arguments, pros and cons, to be thoroughly examined and discussed, so that people understood.

3.     The MRT debating team won the debate and in hindsight, it was the right choice. Can you imagine Singapore today without an MRT? I think we would be log-jammed, because people would be forced to have their own private transport, either motorbikes or motorcars, and the road capacity just can’t cope. It will be at great cost to the economy, because smooth traffic is a major enabler for the economy, and more importantly the quality of life.

4.     But to keep the budget of the NSEWL manageable, the Government took great pains to ensure that the design and construction costs were kept strictly within our means. In other words, we do what we can afford to do. No frills, no nice-to-have features. As planners, we would always want the stations to have this and that, which are not unnecessary, but nice-to-have as it would facilitate commuters. We travel, we see Japan’s stations, Hong Kong’s stations, we know. But for NSEWL, we cut it down to the no-frills. Just compare the old stations with the new stations coming up, for example the nearby Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) stations with multiple entry and exits, versus the standard old stations with only one entrance, and one exit, and that’s it. The multiple entry and exits will be so convenient for the residents. They don’t have to walk around, exposed, open-air, and then you have to build all the covered linkways, which are never fully satisfactory. Once you have all those multiple entry and exits, life will be so much better for the residents and the commuters. But they cost a lot of money. You compare the cost per station for the new line, Downtown Line and the upcoming TEL, versus NSEWL, they are really miles apart.

5.     And that is also why more than half of the NSEWL were built above ground, to avoid the high capital cost of tunnelling and also the high running cost of air conditioning.

6.     But as Singaporeans’ quality of living improves, expectations of commuters go up. Although we must still be very prudent – and we are, with taxpayers’ money – we are now in a slightly better position, financially, to take steps to improve the commuter experience. For example, even though we cannot install air conditioning for the above-ground stations, we have instead, installed many more giant ceiling fans to cool the commuters on warm days. And we have also retrofitted platform screen doors to improve commuter safety. The future TEL and Cross Island Line are all fully underground. The only exception is Jurong Region Line (JRL), but that is because it has been designed to best meet the needs of the Jurong area. This includes the need for integration with the existing NSEWL, which are above ground, and also, it will come at a lower cost and faster pace so that the benefits of JRL can be brought to the residents as soon as possible.

7.     Noise barriers are another example of how we have made continuous improvements to NSEWL. As you know, NSEWL has about 74 kilometres of viaducts that are above ground, half of them are located close to residences like here. This is only natural because residents would then have good connectivity to the rail network. But to minimise the impact of noise on residents, we are retrofitting and have retrofitted some noise barriers. There are two varieties, what you see as an example are the more expensive ones called the semi-enclosed “portal” design. Otherwise, it is just a simple vertical “plainline”, like what you see on the left. The choice of which design to use depends on the need. Where trains have to cross over, inevitably noise level goes up, so for those, we use the more expensive ones. Those which are plain straight like occasionally when the trains go past and you hear – noisy but not as noisy as when they have to do the crossover. You hear it. But once you put up, even the plain one can bring down (the noise level) significantly. So some residents living nearby will be able to experience this ‘before-after’ picture.

8.     We started Phase 1 of this programme, called Railway Noise Barrier Programme six years ago in 2013. Today, LTA is awarding the contract for Phase 3 of the Programme. So Phase 3 will cover 5.5km of noise barriers at 16 locations. When completed in 2023, it will benefit residents living along East-West Line (EWL) from Pasir Ris to Kembangan, and North-South Line (NSL) from Jurong East to Khatib, or from Khatib to Jurong East. The “portal” noise barrier design will be used for some areas such as the NSL between Yio Chu Kang and Ang Mo Kio, which is this stretch here. When all the three phases are completed, we will have 27km of noise barriers at 61 locations on NSEWL. After that, LTA will continue to monitor how effective these barriers are and whether we should do more.

Future of Noise Barriers

9.     It is not easy to install noise barriers on a “live” MRT line, because we cannot close down the line. And that’s why it is taking so long. It requires a herculean effort to lift and erect the support columns onto the viaduct. This needs to be done carefully so that we don’t damage the existing infrastructure. Importantly, we can only do it during engineering hours, when we stop the MRT services. The team has to prioritise, so we give priority to those hotspots where noise is especially troublesome. The works must also compete with other maintenance and renewal works at the same time. Fortunately, we have Early Closure Late Opening (ECLO), so that helps us a lot to allow us to try to speed up this work.

10.    So learning from this, for future transport projects, let’s do it upfront. As we build the line, we also build the noise barriers, instead of trying to retrofit after we have opened the line.

11.    So this applies to the upcoming JRL. As the line travels through built-up areas, there will be stretches where the trains need to pass close to homes and workplaces. So LTA will address these potential noise issues by building the noise barriers upfront, as we build JRL. LTA is also considering the use of noise dampening wheels and better lubrication for the JRL trains to minimise noise at source.

12.    And it is not just trains. For highway construction, we take the same approach. One upcoming example is Changi Northern Corridor. This project will involve the building of a viaduct at Loyang, which will be quite close to existing HDB and condo projects. So while this will be a very good project for commuters, and people living there and also businesses who invest there, we will install noise barriers as we build the Loyang viaduct, to mitigate the impact of traffic noise on the residents.

13.    We are, of course, monitoring the advancements in technology to try to reduce the amount of noise at source by contact for noise generated between trains and tracks. But whatever it is, we cannot completely eliminate it because trains need to run. So unfortunately, there will always be noise but our job is to try to bring it to as low as possible. So we hope architects who are designing, planning new condos, ECs, or HDB planning new estates which happen to be very close to above-ground track lines, please bear that in mind. Try to design away the potential disamenities. I have a few condos in my Sembawang area, very near to the upcoming Canberra station so I visited them regularly. And I saw some very good designs. So where they know the projects, the blocks which are very close to the tracks, don’t build the residence near there. You can park facilities like car park or club house, which will naturally be air-conditioned, near to the tracks. Otherwise, once you open the condos, move in, there will be huge problems for us and the local MP. So you cannot be saying that “Sorry, I come in late you know, please remove the MRT line”. We can’t do that. So in other words, buyers of properties also go in with their eyes open, that your club house will be near to the track. The swimming pool is ok because when you swim, you don’t mind this occasional sound. But for houses and so on, I’m more sympathetic.

Conclusion

14.    So in conclusion, after six years, LTA has made significant progress in this Railway Noise Barrier Programme. I would like to thank LTA, thank the contractors who made this possible, and in particular, I want to thank the residents who I know, have to go through the dust, noise of construction and the ECLO. And the residents who will be affected soon, by Phase 3, please bear with us. No pain, no gain. But generally, I find residents are very understanding. After suffering this minor problem over several years, I think life will be even better. On that note, thank you very much.