The Old Holland Plain

Yesterday, I explored the ring of three public roads and two closed roads that surround the vast, open field that I dub the Old Holland Plain. The plain lies to the south of Methodist Girls’ School and King Albert Park MRT Station.

The public roads are Old Holland Road to the north, Holland Link to the east, and Holland Plain to the south. The closed roads are Holland Road South and Holland Road West. Together, they surround a sprawling patch of quiet, open greenery a short walk from the busy Bukit Timah-Dunearn trunk road.

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

Old Holland Road was derived from Holland Road. I’ve written about the latter as a secondary trunk road in Jalan Singapura. Holland Road wasn’t named after the geographical region in the Netherlands; rather, it was named after a person, probably Sir Henry Holland (1825-1914), Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1887 to 1892.

Sir Henry Holland in 1906.

Back when anything west of Orchard Road was considered “the country”, Holland Road served the suburban, northwestern part of the Municipality of Singapore. After a realignment sometime between the 1870s and 1880s, Holland Road connected Napier Road and Bukit Timah Road, running northwest for much of the way, then northeast, for a total of four and a half miles.

Holland Road in 1954, shaded blue:

The area I explored was the northern section of Holland Road in 1954, close to Bukit Timah Road. The Chinese cemetery at the 7th Milestone of Holland Road was Fong Yun Thai Cemetery, a Hakka graveyard.

The northern section of Holland Road in 1975:

Smaller tracks branching off the road, such as Yoon Kim Road, Lorong Makam, and Lorong Panchar, had been named.

The same area in 1995:

Methodist Girls’ School had moved to the area from Mount Sophia. Fong Yun Thai Cemetery had been exhumed; the remains of its deceased had been moved to a columbarium built by the association which had managed the cemetery.

The aforementioned tracks of Yoon Kim Road and Lorong Makam had been expunged; the latter for Holland Lane.

The area in 2007:

A new road system was forming - Holland Road North, Holland Road West, Holland Road South (absorbing Holland Lane), and Holland Link to create a ring road connecting Holland Road to Blackmore Drive. The stretch of Holland Road east of Brizay Park to Bukit Timah Road had been renamed Old Holland Road.

And the area today:

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

The area remains largely undeveloped. Part of Holland Road has been expunged. Holland Road West and half of Holland Road South remain closed; the other half of Holland Road South is now Holland Plain. Holland Road North has been renamed and added to Old Holland Road; this means the western part of Old Holland Road today is ironically, not so “old” - it is about 20 odd years old.

I started my journey in the south, where Holland Road South, Holland Road, and Holland Plain met.

People parked their cars here to play with their drones. I wonder whether they knew this wide expanse was once a Hakka cemetery. I tried imagining a sea of graves before me.

Holland Road South, closed to motor traffic. One could walk in though. Joggers used it too.

I walked on Holland Road South, heading west.

As Holland Road South gave way to Holland Road West, the road narrowed significantly, partly because years of neglect had allowed trees and bush to reclaim part of the road. Observing how nature encroached upon an abandoned road was fascinating.

Most of Holland Road West was split vertically 1:2 - one-third was left for pedestrians, joggers, and cyclists, while two-thirds was fenced off; a peek past the fence reveals a dusty track connected to work sites.

Holland Road West meets Old Holland Road and Blackmore Drive here.

This part of Old Holland Road used to be Holland Road North - not a very “old” road.

Old Holland Plain, formerly Fong Yun Thai Cemetery.

Holland Link.

The Fong Yun Thai Association Columbarium lies along Holland Link. More about the columbarium in a future post!

Holland Plain, formerly Holland Road South, and before that, Holland Lane, and further before that, Lorong Makam.

According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 2019 Master Plan, Old Holland Plain is slated for housing. Laurel Wood Avenue will also be extended to connect Holland Link and Holland Plain to Sixth Avenue:

Credit: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Like many open patches of greenery in Singapore, we’ll have to enjoy this while it lasts.

High speed derailed

Nearly eight years of plans and negotiations down the drain, or should I say, derailed - the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) is no more, for now.

This could have been the Jurong East terminus of the High Speed Rail. Credit: Farrells.

The grand plan for a 350km high speed rail line was first hatched in 2013. Both nations signed a legally binding bilateral agreement to build the line in 2016, with a target to have trains running by the end of 2026.

The rail line was to have eight stations - Kuala Lumpur, Sepang-Putrajaya, Seremban, Ayer Keroh, Muar, Batu Pahat, Iskandar Puteri, and Singapore, in Jurong East. Travelling from terminus to terminus would have taken just 90 minutes, compared with over four hours by car and five hours end to end by air.

Credit: The Business Times.

An artist's impression of the planned Iskandar Puteri station in Johor. Credit: Edelman.

However, things began to unravel in 2018, when Malaysia’s long-standing Barisan Nasional government was toppled by the opposition Pakatan Harapan in a federal election. Fresh at the helm, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad dropped the bombshell that Malaysia would drop the HSR, claiming that it would cost the country too much - RM110 billion (S$36 billion) - with few returns. Then, he backtracked, clarifying that the project was not cancelled, but temporarily shelved.

So, the HSR was put on hold, officially suspended until May 2020, with the operationally ready date pushed from 2026 to 2031. When May arrived, Malaysia asked for another extension of the suspension, to the end of the year. As the 31 December deadline loomed, Malaysia and Singapore tried negotiating changes to the agreement which the former had proposed. Both sides could not reach a consensus by the deadline, so the agreement was allowed to lapse.

The dealbreaker was Malaysia’s proposal to remove the HSR’s systems supplier and network operator, known as the Assets Company (AssetsCo).

Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung told Parliament: “Because neither country has the expertise and experience in operating the HSR, we agreed under the HSR bilateral agreement to appoint a best-in-class industry player through an open and transparent international tender to assume the role of the AssetsCo.

“Once appointed, the AssetsCo will supply the train system, operate the network, ensure that appropriate priority is given to cross-border HSR service vis-a-vis Malaysia’s domestic service, and be accountable to both Singapore and Malaysia.

“To Singapore, the AssetsCo is the centrepiece of the HSR project and is necessary to ensure that the interests of both Singapore and Malaysia are protected.

“This will minimise the possibility of future disagreements and disputes over the long duration of the project, lasting decades.

“Singapore, therefore, informed Malaysia that the removal of the AssetsCo constituted a fundamental departure from the HSR bilateral agreement, and could not be accepted.”

It is only logical that since both nations have no experience in running a HSR, the company running the HSR should be appointed through a transparent, international tender. Malaysia did not want this anymore, and it was right of Singapore to reject this.

Some in Singapore had harsh words for this revelation. Straight-talking, retired diplomat Bilahari Kausikan posted on Facebook: “To put the core of the matter bluntly: Malaysia did not want any check on its ability to cream off money.”

***

I had been looking forward to an HSR in my backyard - all I had to do was take the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) to Jurong East, and then hop on a ride all the way to Kuala Lumpur. In terms of distance, it’s roughly equivalent to travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto.

I know the Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) train system will still be around in Malaysia, but an HSR feels... different. It’s a world away.

The Japanese shinkansen. Credit: Workinjapan.today.

But that’s how transport history flows, doesn’t it. As the author of Jalan Singapura, I should know. Transport history is never a straight, continuous, linear progression from primitive to advanced. There are starts and stops, unexpected twists and turns. In 19th-century Singapore, it took three decades for railway plans to come to fruition, and when it finally opened in 1903, no one expected it to be removed 108 years later in 2011, upstaged by the MRT system.

The KTM.

Same for the HSR. When the exciting concept was unveiled in 2013, I never expected the Malaysian government to be replaced in 2018, or COVID-19 to strike in 2020, dealing body blows to the economies of both Malaysia and Singapore. Now, it’s all about austerity and closed borders, and flashy, high-speed cross-border travel seems to be the last thing on everyone’s mind.

It’ll be many years before both governments discuss an HSR again, let alone the signing of a deal and the commencement of construction of billion-dollar infrastructure. Will it ever happen in my lifetime? We’ll see. Stranger things have happened in transport history.

Milestone Rapid Transit

A Reddit user, EconomicSanction - no doubt a history and transport buff - crafted this excellent map: Singapore’s old road milestones (which were phased out in the 1970s), plotted on a present-day map of the island, in the form of MRT stops; each “stop” is named after a place name or landmark found there. Great job!

Credit: EconomicSanction.

This map is a vivid illustration of how Singapore’s old trunk road system has been rendered obsolete by the expressway system, and dismantled by islandwide urban renewal - something that’s covered in my book Jalan Singapura. The “stops” remind us of communities and places that have been lost to development - Ama Keng, Hong Kah, Nee Soon, Tongkang Pechah, Kampong Gulega, and so on. And these are just places at every mile mark - there are others at ½-mile marks, and ¼-mile marks...

Ama Keng Village in 1986. Credit: National Archives of Singapore.