Enhanced recreational experience with the completion of the Eastern Corridor and upcoming enhancements to the eastern half of the Round Island Route

The National Parks Board (NParks) announced the completion of the 18 km Eastern Corridor today, which offers additional recreational connectivity between Pasir Ris Park and East Coast Park, through Bedok Reservoir Park. The eastern half of the Round Island Route (RIR) will also be enhanced, with wayfinding features, landscaping, and habitat creation. NParks is also planning three new cycling bridges along the RIR at Changi Beach Park and East Coast Park. These are part of NParks’ efforts to expand and enhance connectivity across Singapore through curated island-wide recreational routes, providing more opportunities for the community to explore and move between our parks and nature areas. They also contribute towards enabling every household to live within a 10-minute walk of a park by 2030.

Completion of the 18 km Eastern Corridor

The Eastern Corridor has been progressively opened since 2021 after it was first announced, enabling the public to enjoy walking and cycling along sections of the corridor as soon as they were ready. The completion of the Eastern Corridor offers the public an alternative route to travel between Pasir Ris Park and East Coast Park, linking several parks in the east which offer a variety of nature-based recreational experiences for park visitors. These include bird watching at Tampines Eco Green, therapeutic experiences at Sun Plaza Park, and sports activities at East Coast Park.

Half of the route is located along waterways, including those enhanced under national water agency PUB’s Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme (i.e., Sungei Tampines and Sungei Bedok), offering park visitors a scenic cycling and walking experience along waterscapes in the east. The Eastern Corridor also features the new 600 m Bedok Park Connector (Eastern Bank), and recently completed park connectors along Tampines Ave 9 and Tampines Ave 10, totalling over 3.2 km. Through the use of multi-tiered landscaping along these park connectors, NParks enhances greenery and attracts biodiversity along the route and in the area.

Upcoming enhancements to the eastern half of the Round Island Route

In January 2022, the eastern half of the RIR was opened. Stretching over 75 km, it makes for the island’s longest recreational connection, encircling Singapore in the east, from Rower’s Bay Park in the north-east, to Changi Beach Park, East Coast Park and past the Singapore River to Berlayer Creek (Labrador Nature Park) in the south.

To enhance the recreational experience along the eastern half of the RIR, NParks will be introducing wayfinding such as mapboards and directional signage to allow for better navigation and improved user experience, and multi-tiered landscaping to provide shade and greenery. NParks will also be introducing marine habitats through the installation of marine tiles to attract biodiversity along the route. These will be progressively introduced at key points along the eastern half of the RIR. NParks is also planning three new cycling bridges at Changi Beach Park and East Coast Park to improve the experience for park visitors.

Island-wide recreational connectivity

Such island-wide routes will not only bring the community closer to greenery, enabling them to benefit from the positive effects of nature on their health and well-being, but will also connect communities and bring about a sense of space many times beyond our small island-city state. These are part of NParks’ overall plans to curate a 360 km island-wide network of recreational routes by 2035, as Singapore transforms into a City in Nature. 

To mark the official opening of the Eastern Corridor, Guest-of-Honour Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies and Adviser to East Coast GRC GROs, special guests Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman and Ms Cheryl Chan, Advisers to East Coast GRC GROs, joined Mr Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State for National Development and Communications and Information and Adviser to East Coast GRC GROs, in planting trees along Sungei Bedok together with the community.

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