SINGAPORE: Singapore's 10th and costliest highway, on a per kilometre basis, will open on Sunday, December 29 at 9am. The S$4.3 billion Marina Coastal Expressway will be connected to the Central Business District by interim roads, as authorities finalise traffic flow in the vicinity. By next year's third quarter, the area's final road network will be up and running. From the east, the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) and East Coast Parkway (ECP) connects to the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE), which hugs Singapore's southern shoreline. From the west, the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) leads into the five-kilometre-long MCE, forming a continuous stretch linking the major highways. Prime land for future developments in Marina Bay will be freed up, since the ECP is being channelled into the new expressway. It also allows roads in the Marina South vicinity to be straightened and widened, promising motorists faster and easier access into downtown Singapore. A stretch of 3.6 kilometres of the MCE is built as a tunnel, including a 420-metre section underneath the sea bed. The expressway will have five lanes in both directions and will link motorists directly to the downtown at Marina South through the new connections with Central Boulevard, Marina Boulevard and Maxwell Road. The Land Transport Authority is finalising the MCE's speed limit, which will likely be 80 kilometres an hour. With traffic currently using the ECP now channelled to the MCE, the stretch of the ECP west of Benjamin Sheares Bridge will be converted to a major arterial road, while the stretch of the existing ECP after Central Boulevard will be expunged, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA). Mr Chua Chong Kheng, Deputy Chief Executive, Infrastructure and Development, Land Transport Authority, said: "For the motorists, we will make sure that there are maps and the details are available on our website, so that the motorists can actually learn from them. "Secondly, (for) the stakeholders living in the vicinity who are more or less affected more permanently, we will enter into engagement sessions with them individually." www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/marina-coastal-expressway/884730.html

• published: 13 Nov 2013
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