Barrier put up on road divider in Telok Blangah after cyclist injured
Mr Patrick Lee cycles to work regularly. The 55-year-old also explores longer cycling routes from time to time.
On the night of April 19, when he and his friend were cycling from Sentosa towards Labrador Park, he fell off his bike due to a sudden drop in elevation on the road divider they were travelling on.
The concrete path, located between Telok Blangah Road and West Coast Highway, was brightly lit, but they could not see the edge drop from their vantage point.
In an interview with The Straits Times, Mr Lee said he saw “a flat road ahead” so he did not slow down. The polytechnic instructor suffered injuries to his right shoulder and right knee after the fall.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) on Friday clarified that the road divider was meant for maintenance access to the viaduct structure, and not for use by cyclists and pedestrians.
The agency responded swiftly after Mr Lee’s former student, Mr Terence Lee, 33, shared about the incident at about 4pm on Thursday with some 10,000 followers of his Facebook page, Bike Guru.
The younger Lee, a content creator, told The Straits Times that some of his followers told him they had “crashed at the same place” as well.
To prevent others from suffering injuries, Mr Patrick Lee and Mr Terence Lee both returned to site at midnight on Friday. They wanted to mark out the edge drop with hazard tape, but to their surprise, some workers from an LTA contractor beat them to it.
“My friend (Mr Patrick Lee) and I went over to the crash site at 12am this morning with hazard sticker and realised the workers have put up a permanent barrier to the entrance of the footpath (road divider) leading to the crash site,” Mr Terence Lee said in a Facebook post on Friday morning.
In a comment left on Bike Guru’s post, the LTA said: “We have put up barriers to make it clear that the maintenance access to the viaduct structure is not meant for cyclists and pedestrians.
“Those who wish to access the MRT should use the pedestrian overhead bridge instead,” it added.
Mr Patrick Lee told ST: “We were surprised by how fast they (LTA) rectified the problem.”
Mr Terence Lee added that the site in question is the most vulnerable spot that he has seen.
“I encourage the public to post photos of vulnerable spots while commuting on the footpath, park connector networks, and roads,” he said.
“This will help create awareness and improve the safety of the public.”
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