Five areas will be gazetted for development as car-lite precincts, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced yesterday.
These precincts are new growth areas - Marina South, Kampong Bugis, Woodlands North, Bayshore and the Jurong Lake District - and they will have greater connectivity to public transport as well as alternative travel options such as walking, cycling and personal mobility devices (PMD).
Meanwhile, the provision for private vehicle parking for developments in these areas will be determined by the LTA on a case-by-case basis, the authority said.
These measures were announced together with a slew of revisions to parking requirements.
Some of these areas had previously been earmarked as car-lite areas.
The Jurong Lake District, being developed as a second central business district (CBD), is expected to have 45ha of its 360ha area served by public transport-only corridors. It will also offer 39km of cycling paths, with more space for pedestrians and PMD users.
For Bayshore, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) had called for consultancies to submit ideas to develop the 60ha district as a car-lite area, with a "strong sense of community and environmental sustainability". Its 6,000 Housing Board flats and 6,500 private homes will be served by two stations on the upcoming Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL).
It will also have a 1km-long main street with wider pavements.
The URA had also announced that the 17.4ha Kampong Bugis area, which previously housed the Kallang Gasworks, would be developed as a private residential area. Its 4,000 homes will be connected to the nearby Kallang and Lavender MRT stations and Kallang River Promenade by a network of walking and cycling paths.
Meanwhile, Woodlands North will have an integrated transport hub connected to the TEL and the Rapid Transit System link to Johor as well as a business park.
As for Marina South, residents in its 9,000 new homes can live near their work places in the CBD.
Density and walkability are the keys to ensuring the success of such car-lite areas, said Associate Professor Walter Theseira, who heads the Singapore University of Social Sciences' Master of Management (Urban Transport) programme.
"A good mix of land uses - such as commercial and residential - is also important because it reduces the need to travel outside of the precinct," he said.
