Mobility in Singapore: A Brief History

Today, I was invited to give a talk to the Intelligent Transportation Society Singapore (ITS Singapore), a society uniting stakeholders from the public and private sectors with interests in transport and transport infrastructure.

For around 30 minutes, I shared about the history of mobility in Singapore over 200 years, in seven parts. Topics covered included the Raffles Town Plan, urban transformation over the last 50 years, the impact of modes of transport such as the rickshaw, motor car, and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), and transport lessons to be learned from history. Much of the material was taken from my book, Jalan Singapura: 700 Years of Movement in Singapore.

That was followed by a flurry of questions from the floor, good questions that got me thinking about long-term transport visions for Singapore, and how we - both the authorities and the public - can achieve them together.

Thank you for having me, ITS Singapore!

(The photo on the slide is of a Keppel Bus Company Bedford bus, licence plate S7618, sometime in the late 1940s to early 1950s.)

A little slice of Malaya in Spooner Road

A great place to tell a story of Singapore’s transport history is Spooner Road, a rather nondescript road branching off Kampong Bahru Road in two directions. Its story, spanning almost a hundred years, covers the coming and going of different modes of transport, and the arrival and departure of a little slice of Malaya.

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The railway came to Singapore as the Singapore-Kranji Railway in 1903, but a good part of the track was realigned by 1932. The new southern terminus of the railway, by then known as the Federated Malay States Railway (FMSR), was Singapore or Tanjong Pagar Station.

Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, 1932. Credit: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

To accommodate the station and railway yards, an area of mostly open land between Kampong Bahru Road and Keppel Road in the south of the island, next to the Tanjong Pagar docks and wharves, was chosen.

Below is a map of the area in 1923, before the railway track was realigned. Much of the open land was known as “Western Reclamation”, perhaps because the area was once marshy, and had been reclaimed. On hillier ground stood the bungalows of Raeburn Park and Spottiswoode Park.

Credit: The National Archives (United Kingdom).

Below is a map of the area in 1934, after the railway pulled in.

Credit: Farish Ahmad Noor.

To create space for the railway yards and accommodation for railway staff, part of Kampong Bahru Road was realigned to the west; most of the original Kampong Bahru Road, now split in two segments by the railway track, was renamed Kampong Lama Road and Spooner Road (shaded blue) respectively.

“Kampong Lama” means “Old Village”, as compared to “Kampong Bahru” (“New Village”); Spooner Road was named after Charles Edwin Spooner, the first General Manager of the FMSR (below). This honour was posthumous - Spooner had died in 1909, aged 55.

To underscore the fact that the railway was Malayan, accommodation blocks north of the railway yards were named after Malayan sultanates - there were Perak Flats, Selangor Flats, Pahang Flats, Johore Flats, Kedah Flats, Kelantan Flats. There was also an FMSR Running House or Running Bungalow, a rest stop for train drivers.

Credit: Farish Ahmad Noor.

Below is a map of the area in 1970.

Credit: Survey Department, Singapore.

What’s intriguing about the map is that the location of the FMSR Running Bungalow had shifted to its present location, closer to the Kampong Bahru junction. Online articles state that the bungalow was built in the 1930s, but they omit this shift in location. As detailed maps of the area are difficult to come by, I am not sure when exactly the move took place. For now, looking at the 1934 and 1970 maps, I can conclude that the present FMSR Running Bungalow was erected sometime between these two years.

There’s more. A search of the newspaper archives reveals that other flats in the area were named after more Malayan states - there were the Negri Sembilan Flats and Perlis Flats.

A 1957 Straits Times article listing polling stations includes the Malayan names of Spooner Road flats. Credit: Singapore Press Holdings.

Today, just two blocks of flats stand in the area - Kemuning (“Orange Jasmine”) and Melati (“Jasmine”), or 1 and 2 Spooner Road. The footprints of these blocks are too close to the footprints of the Perak and Selangor Flats for all four buildings to have existed at the same time. Hence, I deduce that the Perak and Selangor Flats - and possibly the other flats named after Malayan states - were demolished to make way for the Kemuning and Melati blocks.

When did this urban redevelopment take place? The Perak Flats last appeared in the newspapers in 1964; the Selangor Flats, 1977. My guess is that sometime after 1977, the demolitions took place, followed by the construction of the Kemuning and Melati blocks. None of the blocks with Malayan state names has survived to the present.

In the late 1980s, a second major channel of transport arrived in the area - the Ayer Rajah Expressway, running westwards from East Coast Parkway. It was laid down parallel to the railway track, past Spooner Road and Kampong Lama Road. Not long after, the latter was expunged; the site is a carpark for Keppel Distripark today.

Ayer Rajah Expressway, 1986. Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

Below is a map of the area in 1991. (It is a pity that street directories did not show railway buildings.)

Sometime between 1993 and 2007, Spooner Road was realigned into two branches. One branch served the Kemuning and Melati blocks; another served the railway yard.

Below is a map of the area in 2007.

The junction of Spooner Road (left) and Kampong Bahru Road (right) in 2008.

Credit: Google Maps.

Significant changes came to the area from 2011, after a 108-year era of rail in Singapore came to an end. The railway track from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands closed for good; the rail operator, Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), returned to Singapore the land on which the railway yard and surrounding buildings stood.

Once Singapore took back the land, it was only a matter of time before redevelopment happened. The track was removed; the yard and its buildings demolished.

The junction of Spooner Road (left) and Kampong Bahru Road (right) in 2013. On the left, the railway building has disappeared.

Credit: Google Maps.

Between 2016 and 2019, the stretch of Kampong Bahru Road in the area was widened from two lanes to four. Meanwhile, Spooner Road was extended to the east to serve another mode of transport - by 2019, Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal opened. Spooner Road was once named because of rail, but is now associated with buses.

Kampong Bahru Road in 2019. It has been widened, and the old junction with Spooner Road has shifted.

Credit: Google Maps.

What has stood the test of time - for now - are the Kemuning and Melati blocks.

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Entering Spooner Road, I passed a crumbling police post, with the sign “Polis” reminding me that it was built by the Malaysians, not Singaporeans.

The post originally guarded an entrance to the railway yard, but because of the realignment of Spooner Road, it now “guards” the way to the Kemuning and Melati blocks.

The post was in a sorry state, with rubbish strewn all over.

I initially thought the post was as old as the railway itself, but according to Google Street View, it was built very recently, sometime between 2008 and 2013. Nevertheless, I hope it can be conserved as part of Singapore’s railway heritage.

The Running Bungalow. Up to 2018, it was used as a Modern Montessori pre-school, but it presently lies empty.

The Kemuning and Melati blocks, painted a delicious kueh-like green and yellow. Currently, they are rental flats.

The Kemuning block - 1 Spooner Road.

The blocks, at least four decades old, have been deprived of the usual Housing & Development Board (HDB) upgrading, making them an urban time capsule: Old doors and grilles, window shutters, old lifts with no windows, laundry racks for the ground-floor units.

There is an open-air carpark between the two blocks (I was facing the Melati block here.)

The Melati block - 2 Spooner Road.

The Melati block as seen from Kampong Bahru Road.

The walkway from Kampong Bahru Road down to the Melati block - the blocks are on lower terrain than the road.

The ground-floor lift lobby of the Melati block.

The old lifts.

Like other old blocks, the common corridor faces out.

And like other old blocks, the lift lobbies are spacious.

The future facing the past - the Melati block offers a good view of the upcoming Avenue South Residence condominium project at 1 Silat Avenue, with two towering 56-storey blocks.

According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 2019 Master Plan, the area is slated for housing, but “subject to detailed planning”.

Credit: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The Spooner Road area is part of the future Greater Southern Waterfront. It is a short distance from Cantonment MRT Station, which will be integrated with the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station by 2026. I can’t envision the area not being redeveloped in the future, which could entail the demolition of the Kemuning and Melati blocks, and further realignment of Spooner Road. But I hope some form of railway heritage can be retained.

The end of MRT tickets

Sale of standard tickets - limited use paper tickets - at MRT stations will be progressively phased out between January and March 2022.

This comes as most commuters are already using stored value cards or account-based ticketing such as contactless bank cards.

Standard tickets were introduced to allow commuters to pay for their ride when the MRT system began operations in 1987, but now fewer than one in 1,000 trips are paid using these tickets, according to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in August.

The LTA said… the move will start with the Thomson-East Coast and Downtown lines from Jan 10.

This will be followed by the Circle and North East lines on Feb 10, and the North-South and East-West lines on March 10.

The LTA has also reduced the minimum top-up amount for stored value cards such as ez-link cards at ticketing machines to $2, down from $10 for adults and $5 for student concession cards.

“This will allow commuters who have limited cash on hand to top up, continue their journeys and enjoy the cost savings,” said the LTA.

The move to phase out standard tickets - purchased for single or return trips - because of low usage was announced earlier in August.

The LTA said stored value cards and account-based ticketing options offer commuters more savings and convenience.

For example, a 3.2km trip costs $1.70 when using standard tickets, compared to $0.92 with stored value cards or account-based ticketing.

Following the announcement in August, it has been working with partners to contact seniors, lower-income groups and migrant workers to encourage them to switch to stored value cards or account-based payment.

Since September, letters have been sent to ComCare recipients who do not own a concession card to inform them that they are eligible for a free adult ez-link card.

These free cards can be redeemed at any of the 48 Transit Link ticket offices or concession card replacement offices within three months from the date of the letter.

“To assist commuters as standard tickets are phased out, service ambassadors will be deployed at selected train stations over January to March 2022,” the LTA said.

Associate Professor Walter Theseira of the Singapore University of Social Sciences said that it is ultimately a matter of balancing cost concerns.

“Of course, we should be concerned about the small number of passengers who simply can’t use any of the other ticketing systems. But putting in the effort to help them individually might be less difficult and costly than maintaining the entire standard ticketing system,” he said.

“It’s worth noting that it is common worldwide for public transport payment systems to not accept cash on board and to require payment through only limited types of tickets. Offering more payment options comes at a cost.”

… Responding to queries on what options tourists have once single-use tickets are scrapped, LTA said visitors to Singapore can use their existing contactless Visa or Mastercard bank cards or mobile wallets.

Alternatively, they can choose to purchase a stored value card or Singapore Tourist Pass, which are available for sale at TransitLink ticket offices islandwide.

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I purchased two standard tickets at an MRT station as keepsakes - soon to be pieces of rail history.