Nothing much recreational or idyllic happens in the heavily industrial west as compared to all the hype developing in the waterfront of Punggol or the iconic East Coast. However, the park connector network has not entirely left the west in the dust.
This is especially so when the Ministry of National Development, under which NParks is parked, will “continue to plan parks based on our present norm of around 0.8ha of parks per 1,000 residents. These parks will be distributed across housing areas so that at least 85% of our residents and their families can live within 400m of a park by 2030. To be a City in a Garden, we will continue to pursue innovative ways to connect our green and blue spaces, so that our people can seamlessly move from one park to another via our park connector network. The proposed Round-Island-Route, stretching 150km, will provide an uninterrupted leisure route around the island, linking major cultural, natural and historical attractions with our parks, park connectors and intra-town cycling networks. By 2020, we will have 360km of park connectors compared to 200km .”
So that’s the grand scheme of things.
In the meantime, I was pretty glad to see works coming along at a bridge spanning the AYE and bridging Pandan Gardens PCN with Ulu Pandan PCN. In fact, it looks so much larger than a regular pedestrian path that I wasn’t sure if it was mean for traffic or people.
The chance came for me to find out at the PCN Networking Ride organised by NParks. Led by NPark staff, members of the public got to explore several PCN in the west by riding from West Coast Park to Jurong Lake Park.
Of course since we were riding in a large group at a leisurely pace with photo opportunities, the 20km or so return journey took a lot longer than a regular ride.
On the map, the GPS tracking along the elevated bridge looks like this.
Although ascending and descending the bridge will take less than 5 minutes, the planning and resources allocated to this project is massive, especially in a place like Singapore where the cycling culture is just beginning to take root together with a whole host of teething problems not unique to an urban environment.
What the elevated bridge looks like from the ground.
Ascending the bridge
The rest of the ride is also very pleasant. The lush greenery became increasingly visible as we pulled towards Jurong Lake Park. Although Jurong Lake Park was the midpoint of our guided ride, it is by no means the end of the PCN. Jurong PCN links to the Western Adventure Loop and then further north or central depending on where you are inclined to go.
Bike and park connectivity can only get better from here.
Other pictures of the guided ride.
death by paper cut 