SIXTH AVENUE (Widening or provision of bus bays)

Mr Yeo Toon Chia asked the Acting Minister for National Development whether there are any plans to widen or to provide bus bays along Sixth Avenue to ease traffic flow.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Acting Minister for National Development (Mr Matthias Yao Chih) (for the Acting Minister for National Development): Mr Speaker, Sir, Sixth Avenue is a collector road serving the residents in the area. However, there is considerable extraneous traffic using the road. There are two bus services along Sixth Avenue.

Some congestion is observed along the road during the peak hours, especially at its junctions with Bukit Timah Road and Holland Road. Recently, some improvements were carried out to Sixth Avenue at its junction with Bukit Timah Road.

There are no plans to widen the road or provide bus bays along Sixth Avenue as such work would require acquisition of private land. Sixth Avenue is intended to serve as a collector road for the residents in the area, and not as an arterial road linking Bukit Timah Road to Holland Road and Ulu Pandan Road. For the latter purpose, Farrer Road and Clementi Road have been widened to dual 3-lane arterial roads.

Mr Yeo Toon Chia: Will it be possible to provide some bus bays in front of bus stops since widening the road will involve acquisition of private land? There are some side tables and footpaths ---

Mr Speaker: Order. Mr Yeo, no speeches.

Mr Yeo Toon Chia: Will it be possible to do away with the side table and footpath and provide bus bays and bus stop over the drains?

Mr Matthias Yao Chih: Sir, the PWD has studied this very carefully and for the bus bays to be built there are certain setbacks. If we want to make the bus bays in a correct manner then private land has to be acquired for all these bus bays.