Maria Almenoar, Straits Times 29 Apr 09;
WORK on Singapore's 10th expressway, and its most complex and expensive one to date, started yesterday.
The Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) is meant to deal with traffic expected at the new attractions, offices and residences going up in the Marina Bay area.
These include the new integrated resort, the Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Cruise Centre at Marina South.
With five lanes in each direction, it has the capacity to move up to 10,000 cars per hour each way, compared to the 6,000 cars per hour each way on the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE).Once completed in 2013, the MCE will link the KPE and East Coast Parkway (ECP) in the east, and with the Ayer Rajah Expressway in the west.
Motorists who are not headed downtown can also use the MCE to bypass the Marina Bay area.
There will be four exits and four entrances along its 5km length.
To ease congestion, the ECP stretch just after Benjamin Sheares Bridge will be converted into a network of normal arterial roads to serve the area. Currently, this portion of the ECP splits the Marina area into two unlinked sections.
Said Transport Minister Raymond Lim at the launch of the mammoth project yesterday: 'The MCE will be a valuable addition to our expressway network. It will improve our road connectivity and help to support the future development of our city.'
Of its 5km length, 3.6km will be underground, including a 420m stretch parallel to the Marina Barrage which will duck 20m below the mean sea level.
It will be 120m wide at some points, almost three times the width of the KPE.
The project is so massive that civil works have to be carved up into six portions so that the construction crews are not overstretched.
So far, the cost of the project has come up to $4.1 billion - far exceeding the $2.5 billion estimated in 2007.
In comparison, the 12km-long KPE, which has 9km of road underground and some parts under the Singapore River, cost $1.7 billion.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said that it considered alternatives like building a network of bridges to link the area, but decided against it as it would 'devalue' property in the area and 'look messy'.
Reasons for the high costs include:
# Large-scale excavations of up to 25m deep and 120m wide;
# Difficult soil conditions - the soil is made up mostly of soft marine clay;
# The need to drill up to 59m - or 20 storeys - in some areas of the seabed to get to solid ground for piling work;
# Reclamation of 13.1ha of land at the Marina Wharf and Marina East area;
# High raw material costs when tenders were awarded. A clause in LTA's contracts ensures that if raw materials are purchased by contractors at lower prices, the Government will be reimbursed the difference; and
# The cost of Electronic Road Pricing gantries at the entrances and exits, which is included in the construction cost.
Despite the technicalities of the project, Mr Lim assured the public that all work will be done safely.
Among the safety measures employed for the MCE is an SMS alert system that will send continuous alerts to engineers on data like ground movements that is collected and analysed on a regular basis.
Professor Robert Mair, who is on an international panel of consultants called in to review the MCE, noted that the complexity of the project was 'right up there with the toughest in the world'.
Similar projects include Shanghai's Yangtze River tunnel and Japan's Tokyo Bay Aqua Line.
The head of civil and environmental engineering at Cambridge University added, however, that LTA is well-equipped and experienced to handle this project.
Said Prof Mair: 'Looking at their robust structures, soil investigations and monitoring systems, they have taken on board the lessons learnt from Nicoll Highway.'
Work begins on Singapore's 10th expressway
Completion due 2013; it is first road tunnel under the sea
Joyce Hooi, Business Times 29 Apr 09;
(SINGAPORE) The Land Transport Authority (LTA) broke ground yesterday on the construction of Singapore's first road tunnel under the sea, the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE).
The new expressway, slated for completion in 2013, will connect the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) and the East Coast Parkway (ECP) to the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE).
'The MCE underscores the government's commitment to continue investing in Singapore's road network,' Transport Minister Raymond Lim said at the ground-breaking ceremony.
'The MCE will be our 10th expressway, after the KPE which opened last year. We will continue to invest in road infrastructure for the future, within the constraints of our limited land space. By 2020, we will complete the North South Expressway (NSE), which will provide an additional route from the north to the city.'
The 5 km MCE is the most ambitious project undertaken by the LTA and involves the widest road tunnel in Singapore, with five lanes going in each direction.
A 420 m section of the expressway will be beneath the sea bed. At its deepest point, it will be about 20 m below mean sea level. Some 13.1 ha of land will be reclaimed for the project - 9.1 ha at Marina Wharf and 4 ha at Marina East.
Singapore's 10th expressway is also notable for another superlative - it will be the country's most expensive expressway, with the value of contracts awarded so far coming up to $4.1 billion.
Exceeding a budgeted figure of $2.5 billion, based on lower construction and engineering costs in 2006, the contracts awarded so far comprise six major civil contracts and four major system-wide contracts. One minor civil contract and three other system-wide contracts are still to be awarded.
In comparison, Singapore's second most expensive expressway, the KPE, cost $1.8 billion to build.
According to LTA, some of cost of the MCE may be recovered if the prices of materials fall, due to a price fluctuation clause in contracts.
Apart from higher tender prices, construction of the MCE in difficult ground and soil conditions, as well as additional safety requirements for the sub-sea tunnel, added to the overall cost.
Construction will take place in soft clay that runs as deep as 60 m in some places.
'Soft clay is not very good for construction,' said Chuah Han Leong, LTA's director of the MCE project. 'It is like working with toothpaste. So we have to conduct extensive ground improvement to enhance the safety of the excavation.'
Planning for the MCE was done with an eye on property values. To increase the development potential of prime land in Marina Bay, the section of the ECP that runs through Marina South will be realigned and downgraded to an arterial road.
'The MCE will add to the long-term growth of Singapore and increase accessibility to the Marina Bay downtown area,' said LTA chief executive Yam Ah Mee.
Marina Coastal Expressway to cost more than S$4b to build
Lin Jiamei, 938LIVE Channel NewsAsia 28 Apr 09;
SINGAPORE: Construction for Singapore's most expensive highway, the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE), has begun.
Costing more than S$4 billion, it is much higher than the initial estimation of S$2.5 billion due to the difficult soil conditions.
When completed, the 5-kilometre road will serve as a high speed link to the new Downtown area in Marina Bay. It will also link up to the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway, East Coast Parkway and the Ayer Rajah Expressway.
The connection will in turn allow a section of the ECP to be coverted into arterial roads serving nearby developments such as the integrated resort.
Commuters who are not heading to the area can also use the MCE to bypass Marina Bay.
A special feature of the new expressway - Singapore's tenth - is the road tunnel that runs under the sea, parallel to the Marina Barrage.
Transport Minister Raymond Lim, who broke ground for the project at the barrage, explained the complexity of the construction process.
"A 420-metre section of the MCE will be directly beneath the sea bed, making it one of LTA's most technically challenging projects yet. At its deepest point the MCE will be at about 20 metres below mean sea level," he said.
The difficult soil condition in the area means that excavation works could run as deep as 60 metres in certain sections, not to mention the width of the expressway - five lanes in each direction.
Director of the MCE project, Chuah Han Leong, said part of the road will also be constructed on reclaimed land.
He said: "We are working very close to the coast and also quite far away from all the developments that are happening now, like the IR, the Marina Bay and the Financial Centre.
"We are basically next to the sea and we will use the right material as well as construction methods to make sure that all our construction is safe."
The MCE is expected to be ready by 2013.
- 938LIVE