The future HSR stations will be built in new areas close to existing population and business centres.
Malaysian agency MyHSR expects land for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project to be acquired by the third quarter of 2017, after the alignment plan’s public display by the middle of the year, reported The Star.
Tasked with overseeing the bilateral project, MyHSR is now looking at parcels of land measuring 50m wide that can be used as the final alignment from the terminus at Bandar Malaysia in KL.
The 50m-wide band will house not only the tracks, but also a buffer zone for safety purposes considering that the trains could travel by up to 350kmh, said Mohd Nur Ismal Kamal, CEO of MyHSR.
“A mix of private and state land will be acquired, though a lot of them run through plantations,” he said.
The project is expected to achieve two milestones by Q1 2017.
The first is the announcement of the tender to appoint a joint development partner (JDP).
Singapore and Malaysia will jointly award the tender for the JDP, which will provide advice on technical, operational and procurement matters, particularly in relation to the project’s system aspect.
MyHSR will also release the result of the tender for the services of reference design consultants (RDC) for the Malaysian stretch by Q1 2017, said Mohd Nur.
“The RDCs will look at the respective stations and alignments to optimise them all, though it will be more from the civil engineering perspective.”
He explained that the future HSR stations will be built in new areas not far from existing population and business centres, so as not to negate the time savings from HSR by the longer travel time for the last mile.
“The stations also need to be big enough to cater to the expected and future ridership, and have ample space for development around them,” he added.
“We have to balance between these factors.”
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
