(Defunct) New Bridge Road Bus Terminal

New Bridge Road Bus Terminal was relocated to Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal on 10 March 2018. The last day of operations was on 9 March 2018.

New Bridge Road Bus Terminal was a former bus terminal located along Eu Tong Sen Street, near the junction with Hospital Drive. The terminal mainly served as a terminating point for bus routes originating and terminating in the City, and served the nearby developments of Outram Medical Complex, Police Cantonment Complex, Outram Park MRT Station and nearby shophouses. In use from 1987 to 2018, the terminal was closed to make way for the Elective Care Centre, a new wing of the Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

Details

The Terminal:

New Bridge Road Bus Terminal was a bus terminal located at Outram Park, along Eu Tong Sen Street and just south of Chinatown. The terminal primarily serves as a terminating point for bus routes serving the Chinatown area before branching out to the heartlands. It connects with Outram Park MRT Station along the East-West MRT Line, North East MRT Line and the future Thomson-East Coast MRT Line, allowing for convenient transfers between the rail network and bus services at the terminal.

Opened in June 1987, the terminal has a single vehicular concourse area, with an entrance along Eu Tong Sen Street/New Bridge Road and exits leading to Eu Tong Sen Street. The terminal has an alighting berth for two buses, and numerous angled bus parking lots with dedicated lots for articulated buses operating on SMRT Service 190. A terminal building at the south end contains an office, a driver’s lounge and an NTWU canteen.

While the terminal does not have bus boarding facilities, boarding of passengers takes place at the bus stop along Eu Tong Sen Street (10017 Aft Hosp Dr), just outside the bus terminal.

Historical Background

New Bridge Road Bus Terminal was established very early in Singapore’s public transport history, likely in the 1920s by the Singapore Traction Company (STC). Kampong Bahru Bus Service, emerging in the 1950s, also began using the terminal as part of its catchment area in the south of Singapore. After the 1971 Bus Reorganization, the Associated Bus Services (ABS) and United Bus Company (UBC) both operated bus routes from the terminal that serving the Chinatown area before branching off to other parts of the island. The two companies merged to form Singapore Bus Service (SBS) in 1973.

Previously an overcrowded roadside bus terminal, New Bridge Road Bus Terminal was relocated to its present site on 6 June 1987. Built with plenty of parking lots, the terminal helped to relieve congestion along New Bridge Road. However, with the construction of the East-West Line in the early 1990s (and later North-East Line in 2003), many bus routes between New Bridge Road and the housing estates were withdrawn or amended away from New Bridge Road under various bus rationalisation schemes to prevent wasteful duplication of the MRT lines.

In 2005, SBS Transit introduced three new Chinatown Direct services from Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Clementi. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, new services 120, 121 and 122 were introduced under the Bus Service Enhancement Programme (BSEP), and Chinatown Direct CT28 to Clementi ran for the last time in 2016.

With the rollout of the Bus Contracting Model, the terminal was bundled under the Bukit Merah Bus Package.

Relocation to Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal

In May 2016, it was announced that New Bridge Road Bus Terminal will be moved to a new location by end-2017, and the existing bus terminal will be closed down. The new terminal will be built next to Blair Road, land formerly owned by Malayan Railways. The existing site will be cleared to build an Elective Care Centre, an expansion of existing infrastructure at Singapore General Hospital.

The relocation finally took place on 10 March 2018, months after the planned date. The last day of operations was on 9 March 2018, following which all bus services were relocated to Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal.

More at New Bridge Road Bus Terminal to be relocated.

(Former) Bus Services:

Gallery (Mar 2018):

Gallery (2017):

External Links & References:

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