Bukit Panjang New Town

Bukit Panjang New Town is new town located in the west of Singapore bounded by Bukit Timah Road, Dairy Farm Road, the Bukit Timah Expressway, and the Kranji Expressway. With its entirety only a portion of this town is situated on a low-lying and elongated hill, with its plateau-type peak encompassing neighbourhoods, as well as neighborhood Singaporean elementary and high schools; Zhenghua Primary School and GreenRidge Secondary School, respectively, just to name a few. It sits just next to the one of Singapore's nature reserves (the Central Catchment Nature Reserve), bordered by the BKE and the KJE expressways (see Transport below).

Transport

Bukit Panjang is a quick gateway to other towns, as well as vice-versa, as is situated just next to one of Singapore's major highways, the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE), as well as the Kranji Expressway (KJE) connected adjacent to it. As such, many motorists coming from the western parts of Singapore use Bukit Panjang's major roads as one of the ways to access the BKE and thus, the KJE.

There are two forms of public transportation that serves this town: One of it is the public buses (predominantly SMRT Buses as of late). Out of all the SMRT Buses that have its home-base in Bukit Panjang, a few of these are intra-town "feeder-service" buses that ply the various neighbourhoods, and a few only because of the existence of the Light Rapid Transit system. The rest are long-distanced buses; they serve as a mode of transport to other towns and to the city.

The other is the estimated $2-billion, driverless, and fully-automated Bukit Panjang LRT Line, finished in June 11th, 1999. Its purpose was to serve the growing town and as a replacement to the many buses that through the town, especially during rush hour.

There were several petitions by the residents of Bukit Panjang on why SMRT decided to replace the buses plying Bukit Panjang with the LRT after the latter has been built. Some complaints were about the preference of the previous bus system that covered most parts of the Bukit Panjang neighborhoods, because of its many within-walking-distance bus stops that were more efficient than the 14-station Bukit Panjang LRT system, with its stations being spaced hundreds of meters apart.

Despite the complaints, the residents of Bukit Panjang as well as Choa Chu Kang take the LRT on a daily basis, making this mode of transport one of their daily modes of transport. This is also largely due to the fact of no other mode of transport, after bus services were halved.

Housing, amenities, and attractions

Bukit Panjang is a quieter town compared to older housing estates such as Toa Payoh and Ang Mo Kio. Compared to more publicly discussed towns, Bukit Panjang is a quiet town but with major housing developments under way.

The town consists of a mixture of old and relatively new apartments (these dwellings are commonly called flats in Singapore) as well as condominiums. To date, there are 2 community centres (CC) — Bukit Panjang Community Club and the newly built Zhenghua Community Centre. This is to serve the entertainment, recreational, educational, and well-being of residents.

Bukit Panjang Plaza (Chinese: 武吉班让大厦; Pinyin: wǔjíbānràng dàshà) is the largest shopping mall in Bukit Panjang located in the central area of Bukit Panjang town and is near Bukit Panjang LRT Station and Bukit Panjang Bus Interchange. The mall is located at Jelebu Road and has underwent an extension to include more shops into the building. The mall is owned by CapitaRetail another retail-based REIT by CapitaLand. The mall houses the Bukit Panjang Community Library and a NTUC FairPrice supermarket. Bukit Panjang Plaza has a reputation of a food paradise in the area with the recent opening of many new restaurants. Bukit Panjang Plaza is relatively smaller than other shopping malls in Singapore.

In addition to Bukit Panjang Plaza, there are 3 smaller neighborhood shopping malls equipped with hawker centres, supermarkets, plus basic shops to meet the basic necessities of the residents. These three are named Fajar Shopping Centre, Greenridge Shopping Centre and Bangkit Shopping Centre.

The area has two parks, namely Bukit Panjang Park which is just right across Bukit Panjang Plaza and wraps around a man-made pond and Zhenghua Park, which consists of a fitness area, gazebos and playgrounds, as well as a 2.5 kilometre cycling and jogging track that run alongside the Bukit Timah Expressway. The parks interconntect via a park connector which is a cycling and jogging track. This ensures the continuity of the existing tracks in both of the parks.

Educational institutions

These are the current elementary-level schools and high schools in Bukit Panjang since December 2005.
* Primary schools
** Bukit Panjang Primary School (Chinese: 武吉班让小学; Pinyin: Wǔjíbānràng Xiǎoxué) [http://schools.moe.edu.sg/bpps Website]
** Greenridge Primary School (Chinese: 群立小学; Pinyin: Qúnlì Xiǎoxué) [http://schools.moe.edu.sg/grps/ Website]
** West View Primary School (Chinese: 维新小学; Pinyin: Wéixīn Xiǎoxué) [http://schools.moe.edu.sg/wvps Website]
** Zhenghua Primary School (Chinese: 正华小学; Pinyin: Zhènghuá Xiǎoxué) [http://schools.moe.edu.sg/zhenghua_ps/ Website]
** Beacon Primary School (Chinese: 崇辉小学; Pinyin: Chónghuī Xiǎoxué) [http://www.beaconpri.moe.edu.sg Website]
* Secondary schools
** Greenridge Secondary School (Chinese: 群立中学; Pinyin: Qúnlì Zhōngxué) [http://www.greenridgesec.moe.edu.sg/ Website]
** West Spring Secondary School (Chinese: 伟源中学; Pinyin: Wěiyuán Zhōngxué) [http://schools.moe.edu.sg/wsss Website]
** Zhenghua Secondary School (Chinese: 正华中学; Pinyin: Zhènghuá Zhōngxué) [http://zss.egenie.org/ Website]