The last of Jurong Road

This past weekend, a significant event in the History of Movement in Singapore took place - the historic Jurong Road was closed on 27 September for future expungement.

Jurong Road, facing west. The base picture was taken from Google Maps, although the view is outdated - most of the Tengah Forest north of Jurong Road has been cleared for Tengah town, leaving a narrow strip of trees next to Jurong Road.

In the 19th century, Jurong Road was laid down to connect what is now Upper Bukit Timah Road to the Sungei Jurong (now Jurong Lake) area. Over decades, the trunk road was lengthened in stages, until it met the sea at Tuas Village in the early 1930s. In all, its length was around 10 miles. Jurong Road became a major trunk road serving the rural southwestern part of Singapore Island.

(Around 1961, the trunk road west of the junction with Boon Lay Road - Jalan Boon Lay today - was renamed Upper Jurong Road to make it easier for the postal and utility services to locate addresses.)

Urban redevelopment arrived in Jurong, starting with industrialisation in the 1960s. Bukit Batok New Town came up in the 1980s, causing much of the eastern part of Jurong Road to be expunged. A small stretch next to Upper Bukit Timah Road survives as Old Jurong Road today.

Old Jurong Road, at the junction with Upper Bukit Timah Road. Credit: Google Maps.

Also, in the 1980s, the extension of the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) to the west of the island permanently separated Jurong Road from Upper Jurong Road. More of Jurong Road was expunged, leaving a 2.5-km stretch just north of the PIE - the stretch which closed this past weekend.

Meanwhile, a small part of Upper Jurong Road has also survived, mostly next to SAFTI Military Institute.

Upper Jurong Road, next to SAFTI Military Institute. Credit: Google Maps.

It is clear that in the Jurong area, the PIE has replaced the Jurong-Upper Jurong trunk road as the primary channel for motor vehicles. What is left of Jurong Road was a time capsule of an era when trunk roads served the rural parts of Singapore - but no longer.

Throughout modern Singapore’s history, a persistent theme is that of old channels of Movement being replaced by new channels. Jurong Road will suffer the same fate - it will make way for viaducts of the upcoming Jurong Region MRT Line, and road connections between Tengah town and the PIE. As reported in the news:

Motorists and residents of the upcoming Tengah town in the west will have direct access to the Pan-Island Expressway by 2027.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will be calling a tender for new connections which will include a flyover, and which will also give residents in Jurong town another link to the PIE.

The project involves building new roads and modifying existing ones.

It includes a 0.5km dual four-lane flyover along PIE near the exit to Jurong Canal Drive, a road junction below the flyover that will connect the PIE, Jurong Canal Drive and Tengah Boulevard leading to Tengah town, and widening of the PIE between Hong Kah Flyover and Bukit Batok Flyover.

The LTA said yesterday the tender will be called by the end of this year.

To facilitate the construction of the new flyover and a surface road junction, a 1.5km stretch of the PIE will be moved northwards onto a part of Jurong Road.

With this, traffic along Jurong Road will be re-routed to the PIE before joining Bukit Batok Road...

Credit: The Straits Times.

I’ve explored Jurong Road several times over the last few years, the most recent trip being a couple of weeks ago, after I read about the road’s imminent closure. Right to the end of its existence, the road has remained a single-lane dual carriageway, mostly without pavements or curbs; to the south, a buffer of grass and trees next to the PIE; to the north, what is left of the secondary forest of Tengah after mass clearance for Tengah town. I will miss the rustic peace and quiet walking along the road, and I will miss the company of the tall, mature trees lining the road.

I hope some of these mature trees will survive the sweeping changes to the landscape.

SBS Transit Bus Service 174. After Jurong Road's demise, 174 will ply the PIE instead.

I will also miss the bus stops along the road - some of them are themselves time capsules, bearing the names of old roads and tracks which had gone out of use and / or been expunged. Examples include Track 18, Track 22, and Hong Kah Circle. With the closure of these bus stops, the last physical reminders of these lost roads will disappear too.

"aft Track 18"

A bus enthusiast did a great job of filming the road and the bus service - SBS Transit’s 174 - which plied it until the night of 27 September, including the last buses to traverse the road in both directions. The YouTube video is here.

A YouTube user then commented on the video:

Jurong Road, it has been a good ride, and thank you for your service.

A quiet path

One of my hobbies includes exploring historic roads which have been forgotten or are hardly used. One such road I traversed today was Ang Mo Kio Street 66, which is actually off Yio Chu Kang Road, to the farthest north of Ang Mo Kio town in the popular imagination.

Ang Mo Kio Street 66 was once part of Yio Chu Kang Road. However, this stretch of the trunk road was straightened and realigned in the 1970s. The new channel retained the name Yio Chu Kang Road, while part of the old was renamed Ang Mo Kio Street 66.

The northern part of Yio Chu Kang Road in 1966. The trunk road is shaded blue.

A map of the same area in 2020. The original Yio Chu Kang Road is shaded blue; part of the channel is now Ang Mo Kio Street 66, serving Amoy Quee Camp. A short stretch shaded yellow has been slightly realigned to create a new junction.

I suspect this road was retained only because it serves Amoy Quee Camp. If the army camp should ever be redeveloped, the road will lose its function and it could be expunged or realigned.

Throughout the one and a half hours I was there, I came across just one van using the road. Other than that, the road was entirely mine. I love such quiet roads; as a pedestrian who usually has to give way to motor vehicles, I could now “reclaim” the road as my own.

The road serves Amoy Quee Camp, the headquarters of the National Cadet Corps.

The origin of Woodbridge

Singapore used to have a pretty place name, Woodbridge.

I am not being sarcastic here. By itself, the name “Woodbridge” is quaint, and evokes visions of a rural countryside, with dirt tracks running to a wooden bridge over a rushing stream. Unfortunately, the name has been irrevocably tainted with decades of stigma associated with mental illness.

The Institute of Mental Health (IMH) used to be known as Woodbridge. It began in 1928 as the Mental Hospital to the east of Yio Chu Kang Road, and was renamed Woodbridge Hospital in 1951. As part of institutional reforms for the treatment of mental issues in Singapore, the ageing complex was demolished in the early 1990s for a new one slightly to the northeast in Buangkok Green, and was accordingly renamed IMH.

Woodbridge Hospital in 1965. Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

A ward in Woodbridge Hospital, 1965. Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

IMH today. Credit: Google Maps.

There was also a road named Woodbridge. In the 1960s, part of historic Yio Chu Kang Road next to Woodbridge Hospital was realigned, to straighten the trunk road. The new channel retained the name Yio Chu Kang Road, while the original one was renamed Jalan Woodbridge, after the hospital next to it.

The 1966 street directory, showing Yio Chu Kang Road next to Woodbridge Hospital. Jalan Woodbridge, in blue, used to be part of Yio Chu Kang Road. However, Yio Chu Kang Road was straightened, and a new channel constructed, shaded yellow. The yellow road remains part of Yio Chu Kang Road today.

However, because of the stigma, the road was renamed Gerald Drive in 1998, after neighbouring Gerald Crescent. With that, the place name Woodbridge passed into history.

Gerald Drive today. Credit: Google Maps.

What gave rise to the place name Woodbridge, though?

While the name could have been of a European personality, the first thing that comes to mind is an actual wooden bridge in the area. If so, where was this bridge, and what became of it?

I might have found the location of this bridge.

In 1998, in his interviews with the National Archives of Singapore, retired rubber plantation manager Douglas Hiorns shared the following tidbit:

... (We) call it Jalan Hwi Yoh but it was very much a dirt track. And that petered out on after the Pang Kio, which is the Woodbridge and that it kind of just dispersed...

Jalan Hwi Yoh was a rural road running west of Yio Chu Kang Road. According to old maps of the area, it did run over a river, the Sungei Tongkang, a tributary of the Sungei Punggol, presently Punggol Reservoir. After crossing the Sungei Tongkang, Jalan Hwi Yoh indeed “petered out”, from a metalled road (marked by lines) to a footpath (marked by dotted lines). It seems that the crossing over the Sungei Tongkang was Pang Kio, or the original Woodbridge, the wooden bridge.

In 1961, Jalan Hwi Yoh - shaded blue - ran over the Sungei Tongkang, in the red box. According to Hiorns, this could have been the original Woodbridge. Base picture credit: National Archives of Singapore.

Today, the Sungei Tongkang has been canalised, but its course through the site of the original Woodbridge has more or less remained the same. After comparing old and present-day maps, I can confirm that the area has been redeveloped into an industrial park in Serangoon North. The location of the original Woodbridge still has a bridge over the canalised Sungei Tongkang - this time, Serangoon North Avenue 6 runs over the unnamed, modern, concrete bridge.

The new Woodbridge - a concrete bridge carrying Serangoon North Avenue 6 over Sungei Tongkang. Base picture credit: Google Maps.

The bridge carrying Serangoon North Avenue 6 over the Sungei Tongkang, facing north. Credit: Google Maps.

This is the new Woodbridge!

(I also find it quite amusing that an industrial building next to the new Woodbridge is occupied by Iron Mountain, a storage and information management services company founded in the United States. It seems fitting that an iron mountain lies next to a wooden bridge...)

So, the original Woodbridge is now part of the neighbourhood of Serangoon North. The site of Woodbridge Hospital has been redeveloped into the HDB flats of Hougang Avenue 9 and Hougang Street 91. These are more examples of the geography of place names changing or shifting over time because of urban redevelopment, as I’ve described in my book Jalan Singapura.

Of course, as with many historical narratives, there is a postscript, containing elements which do not fit in with the rest of a seemingly complete story.

In this case, Hiorns’ account does not really sync with the news report of the official naming of Woodbridge Hospital in 1951:

Chinese residents in Yeo Chu Kang have a name of their own for the Singapore Mental Hospital. They call it the “Woodbridge Hospital” because a wooden bridge used to be over the stream which runs by the side of the hospital.

Government has, therefore, to use the same name.

Hiorns’ location of Pang Kio, or Woodbridge, along Jalan Hwi Yoh doesn’t fit the description of “over the stream which runs by the side of the hospital”, as the Sungei Tongkang is quite some distance from Woodbridge Hospital.

One possible explanation is that Hiorns was correct, and the news article had printed wrong information about the location of the wooden bridge. Another explanation is that Hiorns was wrong, and the news article was correct, which meant the original Woodbridge was closer to the hospital. A third explanation is that both Hiorns and the news article were correct - and that there were two wooden bridges, both named Pang Kio or Woodbridge, the one closer to the hospital giving its name to the hospital. After all, I’m sure there were hundreds of wooden bridges all over Singapore.

So many possible paths in the landscape of History. I suspect more revelations to come.

This is the nature of History to me - fascinating, revealing, frustrating, and never a closed book.