Bus service 167 to be terminated from Dec 10
One public bus service will be discontinued from Dec 10, with changes to the routes of several other services on the same day.
Service 167 from Sembawang to Bukit Merah, via Upper Thomson and Orchard Road, will be stopped, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Friday.
The authority said the ridership for some bus services that ply along segments of the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) had fallen by around 30 to 40 per cent. In contrast, the average weekly ridership on the TEL has increased from 60,000 in October 2022, to 177,000 in October 2023, following the opening of the third stage of the line.
Some 11 TEL stations – from Stevens to Gardens by the Bay – opened for passenger service on Nov 13, 2022, with four of these stations – Stevens, Orchard, Outram Park and Marina Bay – serving as interchanges that connect commuters to other MRT lines.
More commuters are using TEL because of the shorter travelling time to different parts of Singapore, LTA said. For example, a resident staying near the Mayflower station can now go to the Central Business District via TEL in 30 minutes, compared to a 45-minute bus journey.
The impending changes will “reduce duplication of bus services with TEL and to reallocate finite resources to better serve residents from new estates within our towns”, LTA said.
With the termination of service 167, the frequency of service 980 – which plies a similar area between Sembawang and Thomson Road – will be increased, LTA added.
Also, the route for service 859 will be changed to serve The Visionaire condominium along Sembawang Road, and Canberra Link.
Services 162 and 162M will be combined into a single service and its route would be shortened to a loop between Yio Chu Kang bus interchange and Sin Ming Drive. Commuters can currently take these bus services to places such as Thomson Road, Orchard Road and the city.
Bus service 75 will be shortened to terminate at the Bukit Merah bus interchange instead of the Marina Centre Bus Terminal. The new route will no longer serve Outram Park MRT station and Shenton Way, but commuters would be able to go to the Bukit Merah Town Centre and Havelock MRT station via this bus service from Dec 10.
Bus service 121 will operate from the Shenton Way Bus Terminal from Dec 10, instead of the Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal, and ply Cantonment Link, Cantonment Road, Anson Road and Shenton Way along the amended route. This would maintain the connectivity between Outram Park MRT and residential estates in the Cantonment area, originally served by bus service 75, LTA said.
Upper Thomson resident Tham Chen Munn bemoans the impending termination of bus service 167, as it is one of two buses that he takes to the Thomson TEL station, as well as his parents’ home in the Sin Ming area.
“Discontinuing bus service 167 will bring me some inconvenience, as I would need to walk further to other bus stops to catch the other services,” said the 48-year-old, adding that people living and working in the Tagore Road area would also be inconvenienced with the loss of a bus service in that area.
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