Monday, May 24, 2010

Landmark Going

In a landmark agreement between Singapore and Malaysia, Malaysia has agreed to relocate the famous Tanjong Pagar rail-station to Woodlands. The agreement was wanted by Singapore because this will free up land for redevelopment. The current railway station is near Singapore's central business district (CBD) which is prime real estate.

Some Singaporeans may argue this is a good thing but I’m afraid I’m not one of them. I understand that this is part of resolving long-standing land disputes between Singapore and Malaysia but I disagree with moving the Tanjong Pagar station.

The station is a landmark which should be kept! I understand that the facade of Tanjong Pagar station will be kept but the function of the building will be changed, but this will be like the soulless shophouses in Chinatown where everything had been repainted and renovated. Everything looked the same but the feeling will totally be different.

Tanjong Pagar station is a landmark, I mean when the Amazing Race came to Singapore this season, the contestants came via rail and they dropped at Tanjong Pagar. This is on a show that shamelessly showed almost all the landmarks in Singapore like Sentosa and the Singapore Flyer.

That’s how much of a Singapore landmark the station is and that’s why we should keep it there.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obviously you have not experienced the inconvenience of staying near Malaysian railway tracks or railway station. The horrendous noise those WW2 trains make..OMG!! Sometimes they even operate in the middle of the night! I for one will be celebrating come july next year... Cheers

Ghost said...

Obviously there is some inconvenience but the station isn’t going to disappear, it’s moving to Woodlands. So instead of people in Spottiswoode Park being inconvenient, people in Woodlands are the ones now. That’s hardly a reason for moving the station.