SINGAPORE – A new bus interchange, integrated with the upcoming Bedok South MRT station on the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), will be built to support the future Bayshore precinct.
According to tender documents published by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on March 30, the new bus interchange will be situated within a mixed-use development envisaged as the neighbourhood centre for the precinct.
The development will feature retail amenities such as shops and restaurants, and will house a maximum of 1,280 housing units, said URA. It was not stated if these would be public or private homes.
Such larger and more complex mixed-use developments will typically be given up to seven years to be completed. It was previously reported that the Bayshore estate is expected to be fully developed by the mid-2030s.
Spanning at least 7,700 sq m, the size of nearly 1.5 football fields, the bus interchange is tentatively set to house seven bus bays, as well as some shops and restaurants, the tender documents showed.
The existing Upper East Coast Bus Terminal will relocate to this new interchange, said URA.
The terminal – which opened in 2001 – will have to be demolished within six months of the new bus interchange being completed and handed over. The site it sits on has been rezoned as a park, based on URA’s Master Plan 2025.
Aside from shops and restaurants, the first storey of the new integrated transport hub will include sports and recreation facilities such as gymnasiums and fitness centres to create a vibrant street life, noted URA.
The new development will sit across a new stretch of Bayshore Drive from the Laguna Practice Driving Range.
The extension of Bayshore Drive will be constructed in two phases around the new interchange, with the second phase to be carried out when the existing Upper East Coast Bus Terminal is demolished. This is because part of the new road encroaches on the site where the existing terminal is located.
