SINGAPORE: S$300 million will be pumped in to boost transport infrastructure within and leading into Sentosa.
This involves several new projects, including building an intra-island cable way and a bridge linking Merlion Plaza to Resorts World.Come November next year, visitors will have yet another mode of entry to the island. They can choose to walk to the island via a new boardwalk.
Chief executive officer of Sentosa Leisure Group, Mike Barclay, said: "We've got about a doubling of visitorship coming in to Sentosa from next year. Currently, we have about six million visitors every year, (and) we're going to go up to about 12 million a year.
"So we've built a second bridge, but we don't think everything should be a road-based solution. So that's why we're building a boardwalk next to the two bridges, with a capacity of about 8,000 people per hour in each direction."The 620-metre long boardwalk links VivoCity Promenade and Sentosa. It is touted as South-East Asia's largest thematic walkway, featuring five garden themes depicting different landscapes of Singapore.
Visitors can also make use of the canopy-covered travellators for their journey to the island.
On average, it will take about 15 minutes to cross the walkway. At night, the boardwalk will be illuminated to enhance the precinct and visitors' experience.
The groundbreaking for the boardwalk was held on Tuesday morning.
The project will cost about S$70 million, and access to the bridge will be free to the public. However, there will be a ticketing booth at the Sentosa end of the boardwalk for those who wish to enter the island.
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New boardwalk to Sentosa
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 28 Jul 09;
BY NEXT November, visitors to Sentosa will have another option of getting to the resort island - on foot. A new 620-m boardwalk with five pairs of covered travellators will make the journey a breeze.
Works on the $70-million boardwalk kicked off on Tuesday.
Ranging from 25m to 40m in width, the walkway will also be lined with retail and food and beverage outlets along the way.
The walkway will link up to Sentosa's integrated resort, Resorts World at Sentosa, which will direct visitors to the resort or to attractions within the rest of the island. It is designed to carry 8,000 visitors per hour in each direction and is part of the resort island's plans to enhance transport links as it gears up for a surge in visitors when the IR opens early next year.
The boardwalk, said Sentosa Leisure Group's chief executive officer Mike Barclay, is part of a $300-million budget to overhaul the transport links on the island to ensure that it can receive the increase in visitors, which is expected to double.
The walkway will offer five different themed gardens, from mangrove, rock garden, terrain and hill, coastal flora and rainforest, giving visitors a different experience as they pass from one zone to the next.
It will be lit at night to offer a different experience. This boardwalk will replace the original pedestrian path along the causeway bridge to the island that was closed in August 2007 for the construction of the second bridge.