The Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) is meant to deal with traffic expected at the new attractions, offices and residences going up in the Marina Bay area.

These include the new integrated resort, the Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Cruise Centre at Marina South.

With five lanes in each direction, it has the capacity to move up to 10,000 cars per hour each way, compared to the 6,000 cars per hour each way on the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE).

Once completed in 2013, the MCE will link the KPE and East Coast Parkway (ECP) in the east, and with the Ayer Rajah Expressway in the west.

Motorists who are not headed downtown can also use the MCE to bypass the Marina Bay area. There will be four exits and four entrances along its 5km length.

To ease congestion, the ECP stretch just after Benjamin Sheares Bridge will be converted into a network of normal arterial roads to serve the area. Currently, this portion of the ECP splits the Marina area into two unlinked sections.

Said Transport Minister Raymond Lim at the launch of the mammoth project yesterday: 'The MCE will be a valuable addition to our expressway network. It will improve our road connectivity and help to support the future development of our city.'

Of its 5km length, 3.6km will be underground, including a 420m stretch parallel to the Marina Barrage which will duck 20m below the mean sea level. It will be 120m wide at some points, almost three times the width of the KPE.

The project is so massive that civil works have to be carved up into six portions so that the construction crews are not overstretched. So far, the cost of the project has come up to $4.1 billion - far exceeding the $2.5 billion estimated in 2007.

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.