Heavy Vehicles on Roads near Schools and High Pedestrian Traffic Areas

Mr Baey Yam Keng asked the Minister for Transport whether heavy vehicles can be banned from using roads that are near schools and have high pedestrian traffic with exceptions granted on application when there is no alternative route.

Mdm Speaker, LTA has localised traffic schemes that restrict the entry of heavy vehicles to areas around schools or with high pedestrian activity. However, a blanket ban is not possible as there are many occasions when heavy vehicles need to serve community amenities, or to access construction sites within residential estates.

In such cases, LTA will work with the community and industry stakeholders to implement alternative arrangements such as re-routing to minimise the access of heavy vehicles to these areas, or road safety enhancement schemes such as traffic calming measures and warning signs.

Thank you, Mdm Speaker. Since the accident in Tampines earlier this year where the two brothers died, the Members of Parliament for Tampines have worked with LTA to re-route heavy vehicles in the area so that they do not go near school zones. This was initiated by the community. May I ask when the Parliamentary Secretary talked about the localised scheme, who is the driver of this scheme? Does LTA proactively reach out to the local community whenever there is a new project in the area? Does this apply to both private and public construction projects in every area?

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So, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to elaborate on how it is being implemented on the ground.

Secondly, specific to the accident site at Tampines Avenue 9, although the heavy vehicles are no longer plying as often, which is much welcomed by residents, we still find high incidence of vehicles speeding along the road. May I ask if LTA has any measures to address this issue?

Madam, I would like to thank the Member for the question. In fact, in Tampines, I am very happy to see the positive development. I think road safety is a shared responsibility. I would like to assure the Member that LTA will try its best to ensure that we can help communities and industry stakeholders to keep their environment and road safe.

In most of the cases, we will look into it and we will be proactive. But in some cases, where things are very unique and localised, only the community would know better. There have been many communities which have come forward to work with us and I am very happy that we can see more and more communities stepping up, and, as such, the effect is that we will have safer roads for fellow Singaporeans and other road users.

With regard to the second point, I am also pleased to share with the hon Member that LTA has worked very closely with the community and we have seen positive development, as mentioned by the hon Member. Beyond that, we are also looking at how we can improve the infrastructure, the engineering work with regards to safety. So, I am pleased to share with the Member that we will implement four bus-friendly humps along Tampines Avenue 9. We also have plans to reduce the speed limit along a section of Tampines Avenue 9 where we are thinking of reducing it from 60 km per hour to 50 km per hour. We are working with other agencies to see how we can do the necessary gazetting to make the effect.