Ang Mo Kio New Town

Ang Mo Kio New Town is a public housing estate located in the North-eastern area of Singapore. Its boundary runs along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 2, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, Yio Chu Kang Road, Ang Mo Kio Street 66, Nanyang Polytechnic, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, Ang Mo Kio Industrail Park 2, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, and the Central Expressway to the junction with Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1.

History

Ang Mo Kio New Town is the seventh New Town to be built in Singapore. The early stage of construction took place in 1973 by the Housing and Development Board under the Ministry of National Development. After over thirty years of existence, it is considered one of the matured housing estates with established markets, schools, institutions, community, residential, administrative centers, and even a community hospital and other important amenities for the housing residents.

Ang Mo Kio New Town is in a dynamic changing environment. Further improvements made to the town are still in the process under the HDB and the Town Councils established in the various housing estates on the island.. It has the overall preview of the Ministry of National Development. The administrators have successfully completed various phases i.e., Upgrading programs in their strategic planning of the overall Island City of Singapore.

Town planning

The town has seven neighbourhoods, with Neighbourhood 1 to the west, and cycling in an anti-clockwise direction to Neighbourhood 6 to the north, and ending with Neighbourhood 7 for the town centre.

Residential

Commercial

The Town is comparatively quiet and the nightlife hardly existing. It used to be a new town when first developed as a satellite town. There were always crowds all days and nights, but they dwindle to a few nowadays. It has recently moved the center of attraction of the shopping complex cum bus terminal to another vicinity nearby, and the crowd left with only the few who lived around here. In its plan to draw back the crowd, the town planners are getting to build another new town center to replace the old. It is expected to be ready when completed in 2006.

Transportation

The town's road system utilises a hierarchy of road sizes, namely the major roads called Avenues, and the local-access roads called Streets. The town's avenues are arranged in a grid-like pattern, with the streets filtering traffic from the avenues to the individual blocks. The town itself is served by the Central Expressway, providing the fastest link from the town to the rest of the island on the expressway network.

The town's road numbering system has the avenues in odd numbers generally running in an east-west direction counting from the south, while the even numbers run in a north-south direction counting from the west. Hence, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 runs along the south edge of the town to Ang Mo Kio Avenue 9 in the north, while Ang Mo Kio Avenue 2 runs in a north-south direction to the west of the town, while Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10 is located in the east. Street numberings are in two digits, with the first number corresponding to the neighbouhood it belongs to, while the second digit runs in numerical sequence.

Ang Mo Kio New Town was the first town to introduce this road numbering system, and it has since been replicated in other towns such as Hougang New Town, Jurong West New Town and Woodlands New Town. The newest towns such as Sengkang New Town and Punggol New Town no longer follows this system, however.

The town is well served by a multi-modal public transport system. Two Mass Rapid Transit stations serve the town, namely Ang Mo Kio MRT Station at the centre of town, and Yio Chu Kang MRT Station serving the town's northern area. The Ang Mo Kio Bus Interchange is directly linked to the Ang Mo Kio MRT Station via an underground pedestrain walkway, and provides feeder bus services from the MRT stations to each neighbourhood. Yio Chu Kang MRT Station is also served by bus services via the Yio Chu Kang Bus Terminal sited beside the station. Both the bus interchange and terminal offers trunk bus services to connect the town with the rest of the island, including Shenton Way, Orchard Road, Marina Centre, Marine Parade and so on.

Recreation

Ang Mo Kio recreation area is found mainly in the single park area where it is famous for its bird's park. It provides a variety of daily activities for everybody. There is a 4–5 kilometres roundabout track for runners and walkers, an exercise area where early birds can do their co-ordinate exercises and playground for children. The Ang Mo Kio Park is located on a hilly area surrounded by Avenues 4,5,6 and alongside Mayflower estate. Residents has no lack of recreation facilities since the huge Bishan Parks along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 is frequented by people from both Ang Mo Kio and Bishan estates. There is a famous bicycle way which stretches all the way along the length of the Kallang River where cyclists can enjoy their rides away from the dangers on the vehicle roads. For others who prefer indoor comforts there are many community centers which host a variety of indoor recreation sports like badminton, basket ball courts etc.

Social amenities

Most of the residents' needs for healthcare, community welfare services, emergencies and crime prevention are provided through both the public and voluntary organisations. A government run Polyclinic located in the center of the Town is one of the oldest on the Island. It provides healthcare for outpatients and do a variety of services especially for monitoring the health of expectant mothers and follow up on patients. Many small family doctors clinics operate alongside in different parts of the estate. There are a few some specialty clinics for women and others patients with special needs. The Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital is one the new setups where many patients go for their needs. It operates a follow up on elder patients and special therapy sessions for post-surgery patients.

The Ang Mo Kio Police headquarters is located along Avenue 9. It is a centralized area where both fire and emergencies vehicles operated for the emergency calls on 999. Anyone who lives in the estate will find plenty of amenities for the comforts, security and their peace of mind. The Town Council is the general administrative center which overview the running of all services such as the essential services for the residents. A lift breakdown generally takes less than fifteen minutes for the service people to arrive and fix!

Anyone who call the Town maintaince services will get a response within a reasonable time of less than twenty minutes. There are many residents' organisations where residents could join in and become members, and participate in their activities such as Karaoke singing sessions. Plus that, the Town has scattered voluntary family centers for counseling and helps to those with family related problems.

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