From now until the end of the month, the public can vote for the names of 10 MRT stations to be built in the eastern part of Singapore.
These are stations on the East Coast stretch of the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) and Downtown Line 3 Extension, which will open by 2023 and 2024.
Voters can choose from two names for each station, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said in a press statement yesterday. They can vote at its website: www.lta.gov.sg
Among the names up for polling are Bayshore, Bedok Jetty, Amber, Tanjong Katong, Xilin and Changi South.
The names were shortlisted from over 1,000 suggestions gathered from a station-naming exercise conducted in April and May this year.
The LTA said that the names were picked based on how readily they identify the location, whether it reflects the surroundings' history and if it shows the multiracial, multicultural character of Singapore.
The 13km East Coast stretch of the TEL will connect commuters living in the eastern parts of Singapore, and who are not directly served by the rail network now - such as those in Tanjong Rhu, Siglap, Marine Parade, Upper East Coast and Bedok South - to the city.
The East Coast stretch will also connect commuters to the Thomson stretch of the TEL, which serves the north-south corridor.
LTA said a resident travelling from the East Coast to Orchard will have his journey time cut from 75 minutes to 45 minutes. A Republic Polytechnic student living in Marine Parade will be able to get home from Woodlands in an hour - 20 minutes faster than the 80-minute bus ride now.
The East Coast stretch of the TEL will be completed in two stages. The first seven stations, from Tanjong Rhu to Bayshore, will be ready in 2023, while the remaining two stations, and the extension to the Downtown Line, will be completed a year later.
This article was first published on October 2, 2015.
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