|
By Ng Huiwen
A typical 45-minute ride home by bus for him turned out to be a two-hour journey on Monday.
A Twitter user with the moniker "joulisians" took to the social networking site to air his frustration.
He tweeted: "Apparently, the construction along Newton has caused 2 lanes of the road to sink. Ah see lah! Dig somemore!"
At about 6.15pm, peak-hour traffic heading towards the Stevens Road intersection slowed to a snarl on Bukit Timah Road after a short section of the road sank.
The area where the incident took place is directly in front of the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Church, near the Newton flyover.
Tunnelling works for the Downtown Line 2 are being carried out by a Land Transport Authority (LTA) contractor nearby.
Downtown Line 2 runs from Bukit Panjang to Bugis and will have 12 stations. It is expected to be ready in 2015.
The depression caused two left lanes to be closed to traffic, leaving only one available lane. As a result, there was a massive traffic jam that lasted lasted several hours.
Student Sharlene Yeo, 13, who uses the Twitter moniker "S_Shagua", tweeted: "There was only 1 lane opened and traffic was really slow."
"It took around 1h 30mins by car, which usually doesn't take more than 45mins."
Undergraduate Daryl Ong, 23, had his plans for the evening stalled because of the traffic jam.
He said: "I was going to meet my girlfriend for dinner. It will usually take me about 15 minutes to drive from Toa Payoh to City Hall. In the end, it took about an hour because the whole stretch of road from Bukit Timah to Newton was jammed."
"It was really frustrating."
Construction worker Muru Raman, 32, who was onsite when the incident happened, said: "When we saw the road sinking in, we informed our supervisor. After a while, LTA arrived to help."
 
| 
