(2013, December 29). Marina Coastal Expressway opens.
TODAY. Retrieved from http://www.todayonline.com/
5km-long highway linking ECP
and AYE is Singapore’s first road tunnel to go beneath the sea;
Benjamin Sheares Bridge to be downgraded to arterial
road
SINGAPORE — The new Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) opened to
traffic at 9am this morning (Dec 29).
The 5km-long MCE is Singapore’s 10th expressway and the first
road tunnel to go beneath the sea. It links the expressway has been
described as arguably “the toughest tunnelling project” the Land
Transport Authority (LTA) has ever undertaken, Senior Minister of
State for Transport and Finance Josephine Teo said at the opening
ceremony of the S$4.3 billion project yesterday.
The expressway, with five lanes in each direction, will connect
the East Coast Parkway (ECP) in the east to the Ayer Rajah
Expressway (AYE) in the west.
As vehicles currently using the ECP to connect to the AYE will
be channelled to the MCE after Dec 29, a stretch of the ECP west of
Benjamin Sheares Bridge, where the two highways intersect with the
Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE), will be downgraded into an
arterial road, and a 1km stretch of the existing ECP after Central
Boulevard will be expunged.
To facilitate
these roadworks, which will be completed by third quarter of next
year, motorists using Central Boulevard and Marina Boulevard
will need to use an interim road network to enter and exit the
Marina Bay area.
The MCE will also link motorists directly to downtown Marina
South through new connections with Central Boulevard, Marina
Boulevard and Maxwell Road.
Mrs Teo said yesterday that the 420m section running beneath the
sea and linking the MCE between Marina East and Marina South also
happens to be just 130m from the Marina Barrage.
As the barrage discharges large amounts of water during periods
of heavy rain, currents in the construction area can be quite
strong and not always predictable.
Mrs Teo added the other challenge was building most of the
tunnel through reclaimed land. “The LTA engineers described the
ground conditions as being similar to “peanut butter”,” said Mrs
Teo. More than 4 million cubic metres of soil were removed — enough
to fill 1,700 swimming pools.
The MCE, together with the existing Kallang-Paya Lebar
Expressway (KPE), will make the longest underground expressway in
South-east Asia. KPE-MCE
will have a continuous stretch of more than 12km.
