Cheers to a healthier travel! Land Transport Authority opens new 19-km bike path in the city

SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) recently added 19 kilometres of new bicycle lanes in the city centre, in hopes of improving the links between nearby cities and towns. Furthermore, this upgrade seeks to encourage more residents to travel by bike and experience a much healthier and greener way of transportation from one place to another.

In a Facebook post, LTA declared that the new path covers the city area Bukit Merah, Bukit Timah, and Kallang. The authorities shared that cyclists can now use their bicycles and ride between Great World, Maxwell, Marina Bay, and Paya Lebar. There is also a new route linking Pasir Panjang to HarbourFront.

“These cycling paths offer new routes for residents to enjoy healthier, more active journeys, and strengthen #MoveLite connectivity within the city and nearby towns,” LTA remarked.

Moreover, to improve the safety of everyone, the authorities also built bypass paths at 6 bus stops and reused some road space along Kampong Bahru Road, Bencoolen Street, and Mountbatten Road to create wider walking and cycling paths.

With this, several netizens shared their thoughts and opinions online. One netizen said: “Made the path wider, which is good, but then also makes pedestrians squeeze into a narrow strip while the ‘cycling path’ is unused by cyclists 90% of the time. Makes no sense.”

Another netizen stated that LTA should install speed cameras on the cycling paths before someone gets seriously injured.

In related news, there was a report where members of the public have recently complained and are concerned about how pedestrians and cyclists are clashing for space, with groups of pedestrians occupying the bike lanes and cyclists riding at high speeds in the lanes as well. These often happen near MRT stations. Read more here.