THE Downtown Line will be longer, and is expected to cost more. The Land Transport Authority yesterday announced the alignment of the final phase of the Downtown Line, which will have one more station than originally planned.

The fully underground 21-kilometre stretch, called DTL3, will have 16 stations, between Chinatown station and the Expo. It will pass through residential estates in Bedok and Tampines and industrial estates at Kallang Bahru and Ubi. There will be three interchange stations – at MacPherson, Tampines and the Expo – linking DTL3 to the Circle Line and the East-West Line.

The 16 stations on DTL3 include one at Jalan Besar that was not in the original plan. Transport Minister Raymond Lim said that it was added ‘to meet the needs of workers commuting to and from the nearby industrial estates and other future developments in the area’.

‘Companies operating there, as well as at the nearby Ubi and Kaki Bukit industrial estates, that have to hire buses to ferry workers to and from nearby MRT stations, will be able to save on the cost of hiring private transport when the DTL3 is opened,’ he said.

Mr Lim, who is also Second Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that DTL3 is expected to be completed in 2017 and ‘serve half a million people daily’. The first two phases of the Downtown Line are expected to be completed in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

‘The government remains committed to expanding our public transport infrastructure and will roll out more lines such as the Tuas extension to the East-West line, the Thomson Line and the Eastern Region Line,’ Mr Lim said.

The budget for the entire Downtown Line is expected to exceed the original $12 billion target. However, the final cost will only be known later as tender for Phase 3 will only be called by the end of the year.

Source: Business Times, 21 Aug 2010