In spite of the perennial congestion issues and more alternative travel options on the cards, frequent travellers told CNAFile photo of the Johor-Singapore Causeway taken from Johor Bahru. The 73-year-old Singaporean lives in a Housing and Development Board flat at Marsiling Lane and her block faces the 1.05 kilometre-long bridge which connects Singapore and Johor Bahru.
The housewife travels across the Causeway frequently with her husband to visit her siblings who live in Batu Pahat, a town in southern Johor located about a two-hour drive away from the land checkpoint. Today it has become one of busiest land crossings in the world, with an estimated 300,000 commuters passing through daily. And thiswith Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority projecting traffic volume at the Causeway to increase by 40 per cent by 2050.
Officials from both countries then posed for pictures in the middle point of the 1.05km Causeway, which marks the international border between Singapore and Malaysia. The land bridge has also seen through key junctures of history - from when it was bombed by retreating British forces during World War II, when immigration facilities were introduced in 1967 following Singapore’s separation from Malaysia as well as during theSingapore’s Consul-General in Johor Bahru Ng Kuan Khai said in a recent interview with CNA that the Causeway symbolises the close bilateral ties between the Republic and Malaysia as well as the ups and downs both countries went through...
Retired Malaysian immigration officer Ismail Adnan poses with an archive photo of when he was on duty at the Johor-Singapore Causeway. Mr Ismail reflected that through his interactions with travellers from Singapore at the Causeway, he felt that there was a mutual respect and understanding between citizens of both countries.
He told CNA that it takes him around two hours to travel each way during peak hour, which means on most days he spends four hours in total stuck in transit.Mr Mohamad Radzi - who is married and has a one-year-old child - told CNA that the Causeway is a means for him to work in his dream job and earn enough to support his family.
Singaporean retiree Ng Chee Hiong is an example of someone who travels to Johor Bahru regularly for leisure. The 63-year-old told CNA that he travels across via bus around once a week to treat himself.