Johor Causeway
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Johor–Singapore Causeway 新柔长堤 Tambak Johor |
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|---|---|
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| Carries |
Motor vehicles Single-track railway |
| Crosses | Straits of Johor |
| Locale |
Johor Bahru, Malaysia Woodlands, Singapore |
| Official name | Johor–Singapore Causeway |
| Maintained by |
Malaysia PLUS Malaysia Berhad (Projek Lebuhraya Usahasama Berhad) Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) |
| Characteristics | |
| Total length | 1 km |
| History | |
| Opened | 1923 |
The Johor–Singapore Causeway (Chinese: 新柔长堤, Malay: Tambak Johor) is a 1056-metre causeway that links the city of Johor Bahru in Malaysia across the Straits of Johor to the town of Woodlands in Singapore. It serves as a road and rail link, as well as water piping into Singapore.
From the 19th century, Malaya’s commodities such as tin, rubber, pepper and gambier were largely shipped through the port at Singapore, a British colony. These materials were trans-shipped across the Johor Straits by ferry. The early 1900s saw a rise in cross-straits traffic of both goods and passengers, and the ferry system grew increasingly congested.
By 1911, the demand for the ferries was so high that they had to be operated around the clock. The volume of traffic and the high maintenance costs of the ferries led the colonial authorities to search for an alternative system. W. Eyre Kenny, the Federated Malay States’ (FMS) public works director, suggested the construction of a rubble causeway across the Johor Straits, and this proposal won favour over a bridge as the authorities considered the cost of steel and maintenance costs of a bridge prohibitive.
In 1917, the British government commissioned consultant engineers Coode, Matthews, Fitzmaurice and Wilson to prepare plans for the causeway, and these plans were presented to FMS, Straits Settlements (SS) and Johor governments in 1918. The proposed Causeway would be 1.05 km-long and 18.28m-wide, with metre-gauge railway tracks and a 7.92m-wide roadway. It would also include a lock channel that allowed the passage of small vessels, an electric lift-bridge, water pipelines and floodgates to manage the water flow of the straits. The total cost of the project was estimated at $17 million Straits dollars, and was shared among the FMS, Johor and Singapore governments.
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