SINGAPORE’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) has awarded the final civil engineering contract for the design and construction of the Cross Island Line - Punggol Extension (CPe) Elias station and tunnels to a joint venture of construction companies CES_SDC and Chip Eng Seng Contractors.
LTA says the Elias station contract is valued at around $S 562m ($US 428.1m) and the awarding of the project to CES_SDC and Chip Eng Seng completes the appointment of contractors for all four stations - Punggol, Riviera, Elias, and Pasir Ris - on the 7.3km CPe.
Elias station, located near a busy shopping mall, restaurant quarter and business area, will be built underground at a depth of about 40m, and with five entrances. Construction work on the station and associated tunnels is expected to start in the second quarter of this year with the aim of passenger services beginning in 2032.
The ground around the Elias station site is said to consist of old alluvium, a soil-like material made up of sandy and silty clay. A tunnel boring machine (TBM) will be used to construct a pair of tunnels, each around 1.4km long, linking the CPe Elias and Pasir Ris stations. The deepest sections of the tunnels will be around 50m below ground.
The CPe will provide better rail connectivity for those living in eastern areas such as Pasir Ris and Tampines North along with northeastern areas such as Punggol and Sengkang. More than 40,000 households are expected to benefit from the line.
Three of the four CPe stations will be interchanges with other lines and LTA says that when the extension is fully operational in 2032 commuters travelling from Elias to the Hougang residential area will have their average journey time halved from 40 minutes to 20 minutes.
The wider Cross Island Line (CRL) project will create a 50km line which will be Singapore’s eighth and longest fully underground metro line, linking major hubs such as the Jurong Lake district, Punggol Digital district and Changi. It will be built and opened in three stages. LTA began construction of the 29km CRL Phase 1 at a ground-breaking ceremony on the site of the future CRL Bright Hill station on January 18.
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