Abstract

 In 2013, the Singapore government announced a plan to build the Cross Island Line (CRL), the country’s eighth Mass Rapid Transit train line. Since its release, the proposal has caused ongoing heated debate as it involves going underneath Singapore’s largest remaining reserve: the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Following extended discussions with environmental groups, the transport authority later stated that they would now consider two route options: a direct alignment running underneath the Central Reserve, and an alternative route that skirts the reserve boundary. The authority warned that the skirting option could increase the construction cost significantly and cost commuters an extra few minutes of travel time. Intriguingly, in contrast to the underground rail project that threatens to further fragment the Central Reserve, another, more visible, repair work is taking place at the edge of the same reserve, aiming to reconnect fragmented habitat through an eco-bridge. Through these two seemingly contrasting yet intimately related case studies in a highly developed city-state, this article explores the complexity and ambivalence of urban movement and its entanglement with development, techonology and urban natures. How are the discourses of urban mobility directed by the desire for ‘velocity’, the politics of invisibility, and a fixation on certainty? What might it mean to reconfigure contemporary practices and ethics towards multispecies movements in an increasingly urbanised environment? Amid the growing expansions of infrastructure and public transportation in Singapore and around the world, often in the name of sustainability and liveability, this article unsettles some taken-for-granted, velocity-charged and human-centred approaches to urban movement and explores the serious need to craft new possibilities for a more inclusive and flourishing urban movement.
Highlights
Following extended discussions with environmental groups, the transport authority later stated that they would consider two route options: a direct alignment running underneath the Central Reserve, and an alternative route that skirts the reserve boundary.The authority warned that the skirting option could increase the construction cost significantly and cost commuters an extra few minutes of travel time
How are the discourses of urban mobility directed by the desire for ‘velocity’, the politics of invisibility, and a fixation on certainty? What might it mean to reconfigure contemporary practices and ethics towards multispecies movements in an increasingly urbanised environment? Amid the growing expansions of infrastructure and public transportation in Singapore and around the world, often in the name of sustainability and liveability, this article unsettles some taken-for-granted, velocity-charged
In Singapore’s pursuit of its imagined liveable and sustainable city, the case of Cross Island Line (CRL) shows that mobility is often thought of as a key tool to maintain continuous economic development; and sustainable mobility is narrowly imagined as the practice of providing rapid mass transit with great comfort and lower carbon emissions, while any resultant environmental issues can be controlled or ignored through a kind of disavowal that assigns particular entities to the shadows
Summary
There were no signs indicating the direction of the bridge. Often noises from the highway were my guide. Rather it aims to restore ecological connection by allowing animals to move freely between the two forests, expanding their habitat and linking up genetic populations in an attempt to increase their species’ survival chances.[64] One prominent feature of this ecological path is its wide hourglass-shape measuring fifty meters at the narrowest point. This width was determined by the local conservation experts as the minimum width for some animals— including Sunda pangolins, civets, native small mammals such as squirrels or shrub birds—to ‘feel comfortable’ when crossing the bridge.[65]. The assemblage of this structural linkage and its users inspires a more lively approach to rethinking mobility through ‘a politics of conviviality’ proposed by Hinchliffe and Whatmore, which ‘is serious about the heterogeneous company and messy business of living together’.72 From this perspective, the bridge performs an alternative and experimental way in which urban nature may be imagined, resisting a singular way of moving
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
