Singapore’s NParks Round Island Route

Bike lanes — every cyclist wishes for them. While there are no dedicated bike lanes in Singapore, we have the next best thing, which are park connectors maintained by the National Parks Board. Basically, they are paths linking parks up which also double up as recreational paths for jogging, walking or biking. It’s just one of the ways the National Parks Board intends to fulfill its vision of Singapore as a “city in a garden”.

I’m very fortunate to be living in this country with a hobby such as mine. I’ve traveled to other places where there is little to no effective biking infrastructure. Whereas here, we have park connectors that are joined up to make pockets of safe routes. Some people might have complaints about the PCN’s, even calling them “park disconnectors” in some areas (true, but these are older paths and will be fixed in the future), but the reality is Singapore’s PCNs are world class. WORLD CLASS! Rarely can you find artistic landscaping, toilets, shelters, water points, and mood lighting in other bike paths in the world. Before we complain about what we have, let us appreciate it. To be honest, the infrastructure to make cycling more accepted locally is already in place — what’s needed is to change the attitudes of the masses about the bicycle as a form of transport, but that’s a post for another entry.

With this, I say many MANY thanks to Bernard and his team, for dedicating their time and effort to push for these PCNs. It’s not just a job. They are activists in their own right.

Anyway, I digress.

Last week I attended a focus group discussion for the planned Round Island Route. I first heard about this at the NE Riverine Loop launch. The RIR is a path approximately 150km around Singapore, looping the park connectors at the borders. From what I gather, some 80% of the infrastructure is already in place. What’s left to do is fix them, connect them together, and set them up to PCN standards. There’s no exact timeline or route yet, but they had a discussion with regular PCN users to figure out our specific needs and preferences. Our group was for cyclists, obviously.

Amongst the ideas thrown out in planning the RIR were the following, which we had to rank in order of importance:

1. places of interest – location specific interests like coastal views, or historical landmarks
2. activities/services – group activities to be held at the RIR, mobile phone apps for the RIR
3. connectivity – least amount of mount/dismount and facilities for the handicapped
4. shade – shelters and tree landscaping
5. features – parking lots (cars AND bikes), playgrounds, exercise areas, toilets, water points
6. commercial outlets – bike rentals, food stops and various kiosks

Before you flay me for not selecting connectivity as my first choice, bear in mind that I graded these points with regard to the RIR being made as a facility for everyone’s use, not just cyclists. For an ordinary person, I think a place of interest would be most important because that’s what would bring you to go there and we want people to go on the RIR.

The future RIR is sectioned into three zones with the following themes indicated in the photo above. The east, both north and south sections of it, will be the “coastal adventure”. The south (Tiong Bahru represent!) will be “city and heritage” since it goes through town. And the north-western section will be “eco-discovery”. I guess it’ll be called as such because there’s a lot more to discover there since it’s such an “ulu” place, LOL.

It was a long evening with lots of discussions! Everyone has different points of view, but it’s all good. Can’t wait for updates on the RIR! 🙂