Near Or Far - what does this mean anymore???

[queenie71]

Coming from Europre and now living on one of HK's outlying islands, I am very used to travelling at least 1/2 hour to get somehwere.

However, now we are considering moving to Singapore and we are considering which areas to live, it seems that everyone is obsessed by distances and how near we will be to the children's schools.

We are waitlisting for different schools so we might not even have a school confirmed by the time we have to find a house (later this year).

Following a review of how much we want to spend and the style of housing we like, we've seen on the web something we like but it's "up North" Near Khatib MRT... and we hope to go to Tanglin trust...

The street directory says it's only 20 mins but agents say that's too far!!
20 mins is surely ok??? Or do they mean that it will take much longer?

Is all "North" the same - Is Khatib area as far as Woodlands or the zoo???
We definitely want transport and bad commuting issue.

I don't yet know what local conveniences are like. I would at least need a very good Cold Storage, a wet market, some nice shops and ideally some form of food court...

[Asdracles]

Yes, here everybody say "too far" for places that for me are really near. Public transportation is good, and if you have a car, everywhere is really close.

I suggest you go to http://www.gothere.sg

In that website, you put one origin and destination, and you check the travel time by bus/train/car, even the best way to go.

I move a lot around because my work and can say that is very accurate (hope this is not advertisement)

[queenie71]

Thanks for the advice.

Have just tried it and it gives really long travelling times for buses as it adds on the waitling times - are these wait times realistic?

[jpatokal]

Have just tried it and it gives really long travelling times for buses as it adds on the waitling times - are these wait times realistic?

Gothere usually gives worst-case waiting times, but this is good, because frequencies on some lines are really low (>20 min between buses). And buses here are for most part really slow, since there are bus stops every few hundred meters and esp. suburban lines winding their way through mazes of housing blocks can take forever to get from point A to point B.

Also, note that you're given a choice between "Smartest", "Fastest", and "Cheapest". Every now and then the "fastest" choice will be considerably faster, but not considered "smarter" because it requires an extra transfer and/or costs $0.10 more...

And, while gothere.sg is good, it's not perfect. Eg. for "Lakeside" to "International Business Park" -- my former commute -- it suggests that I should take a bus estimated to take 44 min... while in reality, I took the MRT two stops to Jurong East (5 min max incl. waiting time in rush hour) and either walked from there or took the free shuttle bus in ~10 min.

[Asdracles]

while in reality, I took the MRT two stops to Jurong East (5 min max incl. waiting time in rush hour) and either walked from there or took the free shuttle bus in ~10 min.

I think gothere.sg doesn't have in its database the free shuttle buses, that's why this problem happens.

And about the waiting times, if you know the bus stop code and the bus number (if you are doing a usual trip) you can send a SMS and get inmediately the time before the next bus

Just you must send a message to 74744 with the code of the bus stop and the number of your bus. You avoid to wait in the bus stop for long time if the next bus is still far!

[Rithish]

Coming from Europre and now living on one of HK's outlying islands, I am very used to travelling at least 1/2 hour to get somehwere.

However, now we are considering moving to Singapore and we are considering which areas to live, it seems that everyone is obsessed by distances and how near we will be to the children's schools.

We are waitlisting for different schools so we might not even have a school confirmed by the time we have to find a house (later this year).

Following a review of how much we want to spend and the style of housing we like, we've seen on the web something we like but it's "up North" Near Khatib MRT... and we hope to go to Tanglin trust...


The street directory says it's only 20 mins but agents say that's too far!!
20 mins is surely ok??? Or do they mean that it will take much longer?

Is all "North" the same - Is Khatib area as far as Woodlands or the zoo???
We definitely want transport and bad commuting issue.

I don't yet know what local conveniences are like. I would at least need a very good Cold Storage, a wet market, some nice shops and ideally some form of food court...

Hi, for most singaporeans, everywhere is far. It all depends on you. Of cos if would be great to have your home near the mrt, as its very convenient. tell your agent your requirement, and it shoud be easy to match .

Cheers