Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Open House of Joo Koon and Pioneer MRT station

Boon Lay has been the terminal station for the West line branch of Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) network since 1988.
Come this Saturday, 21 Feb 09, two new MRT stations beyond Boon Lay will open: Pioneer MRT station and Joo Koon MRT station!
Joo Koon MRT station will be the new Western terminal MRT station on Singapore's network, possibly for eternity until SMRT decides to expand all the way further.... to Jurong Island? who knows? Singapore is dynamic with land use policy as always!
These days, I saw the words inscripted on the display panels of underground stations "To Boon Lay" being replaced with "To Joo Koon", similar changes extend to all MRT maps and train announcements.
Just last week, I have already heard the announcment: "Passengers going to Joo Koon, please proceed to platform A ...." unwittingly played for this new announcement should not have been played as the two new stations will open only this Saturday.
But who is Joo Koon? Joo Koon MRT station must be named after a famous Singaporean? Who is he? I tried to google but could not find anything related to Joo Koon. If you know who is Joo Koon, please inform me. Meanwhile, I stumbled upon this site unveiling the meaning of some street names in Singapore.
Bye bye Boon Lay, Hello Joo Koon!

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Great to leave a legacy with a street named after u, isnt it ? I doubt it's much in practise anymore. I see the trend moving towards naming an academic facility after a illustrious person, like LKY for eg. At least chinese names r not so long in comparison to the dutch. Not only was it a nuisance when writing one's home address named after Dr. Albert Einstein van Schlywei-Holstein (as eg), it's a nightmare when such names r to be filled in official papers or the passport !

U hv found an informative site which I hv bookmarked for reading this weekend.

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