geedee

That's good.... I must have picked the slow-coach lane today!

jeremy8

Tried to go home to HH yesterday at 8 pm. Massive jams due to school holidays and it being Friday night. I think it cleared only after 11 pm.

bakedbean

Hi Jeremy and welcome to the forum and welcome to traffic jams

geedee

Chatting to a colleague at work today who uses Woodlands daily. He says things have been getting worse over recent months and there's a rumour surfacing.... the delays are intentional to discourage "living in Malaysia, working in S'pore"....

It certainly feels like it (especially when pitching up at Tuas when heavy traffic is expected and finding half the booths closed!) but it doesn't make any sense.... surely both Malaysia and S'pore want to encourage the Iskandar Experiment... after all most of the investment is from S'pore... isn't it?

Any thoughts or gossip??

Eus

Hi Forum members, I just joined to participate in the discussions and get some information/help on the move to Nusajaya and the daily commute to Singas.

Hmmmm Geedee, I hope you are wrong about that as I will be joining you in the morning madness soon, also on the bike (B-King).

I'm hoping that the "image" of Singapore being super efficient and well organized will be more important than those few Singaporeans and expats that move to the other side and commute every day.

It should relieve pressure on the housing demand in Singapore making housing more affordable for people here.

Anyway, the house hunt is on still, another two rounds this weekend coming up !

Bocat

Good luck with the house hunting Eus! We spent months going back and forth before finally deciding on East Ledang.

I spoke to an older gentleman a few months ago - he lived in Singapore for years and has been living in Malaysia for a long time now. He says it's been like this for years - it's as if they do it just to wind up the other side. So I don't think it's a new thing. It's just so annoying when it could easily work so well.

Eus

Today we kept an eye on it and the time it takes to get the passports scanned in the computer systems seems to take a lot longer in Singapore than in Malaysia. This is subjective by the way, not timed.

Also it seemed that Singapore had fewer booths open than Malaysia. Whether that is on purpose (to discourage people to go back and forth) or because Singapore has not enough people in the border security force, I don't know.

I don't think it makes sense for Singapore to create a bottleneck as they make a lot of money (taxes) on people working in Singapore and spending money in Singapore. I see a very "tight" housing market in Singapore so I don't see money disappearing, on the contrary, having affordable housing usually creates a positive economic force on the economy (more people can afford to live and work in your country making money). Then I'm not an economist, just an engineer

Today was fine going both ways with minimal delays

geedee

Not if you were heading in about 1800.... say a kilometre at the Singapore entry side!! Luckily I was heading home....

Funny thing is my colleagues in S'pore (who maybe use the border once a month if that) are convinced that the problem is Malaysia. As a frequent user I can confirm that 99% of the time the problem is definitely Singapore Immigration. You're quite right about the booths being unmanned. Whether it's deliberate for some obscure political reason, or just totally rubbish planning is anyone's guess. The fact remains that it is very badly managed, and makes a mockery of this "Singapore Efficiency" myth.

Eus

This weekend there was little to complain for us. Both trips were smooth with the Malaysian side being faster (more booths open and less time to scan and stamp the passports). But we went at "good" times.

bakedbean

Bet it will be busy this weekend eh?

Eus

I don't think we will be going across if we don't absolutely have to At least not before checking the webcam !!!!

bakedbean

Very wise

We're battening down the hatches from Friday. Firecrackers have started already

Singmom

This week, traffic is just unbelievable! Both morning and evening. Today it took me 90 minutes to cross Tuas, this was a record! It just feels like there are so many cars suddenly, three time as much as usual. It didn't feel like it's the problem of system, passport scan didn't take much time.

Anyone has any idea what's going on?

geedee

It has been bad hasn't it? And the queues are there until much later.... I had to buy a "big box" on Thursday so took a taxi, left S'pore at 1845 and got home at 2115! 2.5 hours to drive 40km or so.

The car lane started out 3 wide in the tunnel but by the time it got towards the checkpoint, had been narrowed to ONE because there were so many bikes spilling over (no barriers). At that time of night cars usually just zip through.... and the bikes aren't there either. Not this week, total mayhem. Closed booths at the bike side is all I can think of. They'd even shut 2 of the fingerprint scan lanes last time I went on a bike.... there are only 8.

We're going back home if it carries on like this for much longer!!

Singmom

I was thinking it may be because of the recent breach of security at Woodland immigration... Because of the incident, maybe the jam in Woodland worsened and people are switching to Tuas?

Whatever the cause of the jam, I really hope this is just temporary...! Spending 3-4 hours a day on commute is murderous! :