North-South Corridor delay: Was it avoidable – and can businesses survive the impact?

Well, for this knock-stop corridor, I would say that it is more complex than the previously constructed KPE in the sense that because it has to traverse through more difficult ground conditions.

For example, knock-stop corridor is going from the the downtown area, Bishrut, which is where the F1 is held.

So it starts there, and then it ends at Wulan.

So it's about 22 kilometer.

So along this 22 kilometer, it started from a very soft ground, which is, we call it soft marine clay, in the southern area, which is where the F1 is.

And it slowly travels into the central part, which is the Novena area, where you encounter very hard rock.

And when you go further north, it's also, again, it's a very hard rock condition that they're encountering.

And plus that the corridor that the construction is being carried out is along the existing road, which makes it doubly challenging because that means that they have to do the work slower because they need to first divert the traffic first and let the traffic flow before they can do work in the available space.

Imagine there's already an existing road and then you're actually constructing another layer of underground road beneath the existing road.

And you can see that, for example, the Novena-Thompson area, both sides of the road is already fully built up.

Then you can't swing the road to one side.

and then build it by car.

So you're going to split it to many, many small roads, creating some small spaces for the construction to be carried out.

Of course, that has been originally catered for.

We know that the condition is difficult.

Yeah,

exactly.

That's what I'm getting at.

Because you had already planned for this.

So you know the homes on both sides.

You know these constraints.

So one would have thought they would have planned and anticipated all those challenges.

Yes.

You're right.

So definitely all this construction sequence has been planned for before you actually went into the actual construction, before you actually create the disruption that it has to, right, to construct it.

Well, for this knock-stop corridor, I would say that it is more complex than the previously constructed KPE in the sense that because it has to traverse through more difficult ground conditions.

For example, knock-stop corridor is going from the the downtown area, Bishrut, which is where the F1 is held.

So it starts there, and then it ends at Wulan.

So it's about 22 kilometer.

So along this 22 kilometer, it started from a very soft ground, which is, we call it soft marine clay, in the southern area, which is where the F1 is.

And it slowly travels into the central part, which is the Novena area, where you encounter very hard rock.

And when you go further north, it's also, again, it's a very hard rock condition that they're encountering.

And plus that the corridor that the construction is being carried out is along the existing road, which makes it doubly challenging because that means that they have to do the work slower because they need to first divert the traffic first and let the traffic flow before they can do work in the available space.

Imagine there's already an existing road and then you're actually constructing another layer of underground road beneath the existing road.

And you can see that, for example, the Novena-Thompson area, both sides of the road is already fully built up.

Then you can't swing the road to one side.

and then build it by car.

So you're going to split it to many, many small roads, creating some small spaces for the construction to be carried out.

Of course, that has been originally catered for.

We know that the condition is difficult.

Yeah,

exactly.

That's what I'm getting at.

Because you had already planned for this.

So you know the homes on both sides.

You know these constraints.

So one would have thought they would have planned and anticipated all those challenges.

Yes.

You're right.

So definitely all this construction sequence has been planned for before you actually went into the actual construction, before you actually create the disruption that it has to, right, to construct it.