IMPACT OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE THOMSON EAST-COAST LINE ON AFFECTED RESIDENTS � SENTIMENTS

Abstract

In an article posted on the Straits Times regarding car ownership, it stated that “having an MRT station or bus stop within walking distance from home – no further away than 10 minutes – would reduce the need to own a car.” (Lim, 2016) With that in mind, the government plans to introduce three more MRT lines so that four in every 5 Singaporeans will be within a 10-minute walk of an MRT station by 2030. (Teo, 2019)

The latest edition to the family of MRT lines would be the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL). However, only 3 stations are currently in operation while the rest of the 28 confirmed stations are still undergoing construction. Although there are many studies done on the impact of transportation on housing value, there are few academic papers that focus on the resident’s sentiments who are affected by such an introduction. Thus, with the TEL slowly commencing its operation, it would be interesting to research on the sentiments of these residents, particularly those related to real estate decisions in like of the announcement of this up and coming MRT line. The study adopts an empirical research to examine the impact of the announcement of the Thomson East-Coast line on the affected residents’ sentiments in the neighbourhood of 6 of its stations.

The sentiments was divided into 4 categories: the decision to move closer to their workplace, their children’s school, the decisions in relation to the purchase and selling of their personal vehicles and the decisions to change their jobs. The findings conclude that the resident’s sentiments are largely unaffected by the announcement of the said MRT line, with over 90 per cent of the residents showed no change in their sentiments from the empirical study conducted. In addition, two other hypotheses were established. The ‘poorer’ population was said to be more heavily affected by the announcement. The same conclusion was made for residents who were living closer to the new station. However, through the empirical findings, both hypotheses were also rejected.