Comment by jefftk
7 days ago
> essentially nothing you can do now to fix it
You can build another line. This one was cheap and the demand is clearly there. And two medium capacity lines are generally better than one high capacity line in terms of offering more options to travelers.
It is much more expensive to build another line at that point due to the increase in density of the city (and sometimes new requirements of stations to meet building codes). Nearly every high volume transit system out there has choke points that are extremely expensive or impossible to fix by building another line. The tunnel between VA and DC on WMATA’s Orange, Silver, and Blue lines is a 20 year project. Tracks for LIRR to go to Grand Central took 60 years from proposal to opening. It is viewed as nearly impossible to build a line parallel to the MBTA underground green line, a system that has short two car trains and 4 branches above ground on the Boston side, so very easily could use a parallel line.
Singapore started building MRTs in 1982 and essentially never stopped. However "just build another line" is a bit glib when you're dealing with a city state of 6 million people on an island roughly 40km x 20km. There is a huge opportunity cost if land is misused or underused.
Well, at least we are putting our trains either on Pylons or underground. But you are right about opportunity costs nevertheless.
Also to add: building a high capacity line (say with 2x the capacity of the Circle Line) doesn't take 2x the land. There are obvious economies of scale.
Building two lower capacity lines has some diseconomies of scale, as the opportunity costs of the land use mount.
> This one was cheap
Singapore's MRT lines are some of the most expensive public transport projects ever. The Circle Line, fully automated and fully underground, cost S$10 billion[1]. The recent Thomson-East Coast Line, still partially under construction, is projected to cost S$25 billion[2]. It was not 'cheap' by any means.
> You can build another line
Singapore is building another line: the Cross-Island Line[3]. It has planned or is constructing at least three more lines[4][5] to achieve something like 460 km by 2040, thereby exceeding the length of the London Underground. About S$100 billion is earmarked for public transport expansion.
But the Circle Line was, as someone who has used it ever since it opened in 2009, ill-conceived as a 'small line'. It is heavily overcrowded. Because of the immense traffic and somewhat lacklustre maintenance, it has suffered several delays and breakdowns. The ideal thing for LTA to do would be to expand each station's capacity, because it links all of Singapore's radial lines at heartland residential areas.
[1]: https://medium.com/from-the-red-line/was-the-circle-line-bui...
[2]: https://www.mot.gov.sg/news/Details/speech-by-minister-khaw-...
[3]: https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/ltagov/en/upcoming_projects/r...
[4]: https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/dam/ltagov/who_we_are/our_wor...
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapore)...