PUBLIC transport commuters got onboard the first Circle Line trains today – nine years after the multi-billion-dollar project was announced by the Government. 

They may only have five stations – Bartley, Serangoon, Lorong Chuan, Bishan and Marymount – out of the line’s 29 to visit, but it is a start. 

By middle of next year (2010), another 11 stations along the southern stretch of the 33.3km line leading to the Marina Bay area are expected to open. 

The remaining 13 that dot the north-western arc of the line will open from 2011.

If not for a 2004 tunnelling accident along Nicoll Highway that claimed the lives of four Circle Line workers, and which led to a massive review of construction methods, the line would have been ready earlier.

But what has happened has happened, and hopefully, Singapore has learnt from the tragedy.

Looking ahead, it will be merely another 10 years or so before three all-new MRT lines are up. They are the 40km Downtown Line, 27km Thomson Line and 21km Eastern Region Line. 

Together with extension projects that will stretch the East-west Line to Tuas (14km) and the North-south Line to Marina South (1km), we are talking about 103km of rail projects – more than thrice the length of the Circle Line – within a decade.

The mind boggles at the rate of expansion. No other country has embarked on this scale of mass transit works, and at such speed. 

When everything is completed by 2020, most of the residential and commercial centres on the island will be connected by rail.

This is nothing short of awesome. The fast-forward charge to connect Singapore, all announced by Transport Minister Raymond Lim, more than makes up for the heavy hesitance that clouded new rail projects in the past. 

Readers will recall the protracted debate that preceded the construction of the 20km North-east Line, and the public relations fiasco that followed the decision not to open its Buangkok station.

Minister Lim reassured Singaporeans that in future, the decision to build new rail lines will not hinge on the commercial viability of the line in question. Instead, the Government could give the go-ahead to build as long as the entire network remains viable.

This certainly takes some angst out of the equation. And it certainly gives hope to those who long for a train station that is within walking distance of their homes or workplace. 

In the meantime, as $40 billion worth of rail projects get underway, the builders should try new ways to minimise the dust, the disruption and the soil movements. 

But even more importantly, they should never forget the Nicoll Highway accident, and the old saying that haste makes waste.