Thomson Flyover

A flyover is a structure which carries one road over the top of another road

Sheltered bus stop with many bus services going into CBD and town. Good for rainy days.

I studied at the Anglo-Chinese School from 1964 to 1968. Every afternoon, I would take Tay Koh Yat bus no. 9a from Newton Circus to my home at Lorong Chuan. During this period I saw them construct two of Singapore’s earliest flyovers. The first one was called the Thomson Flyover where today’s PIE (Pan Island Expressway) crosses Thomson Road. Under this flyover, there used to be some very famous hawker stalls. But I seem to recall that we usually referred to this place as the Whitley Flyover. Anyway, the main function was to provide access to the new HDB estate called Toa Payoh. I believe this was Singapore’s second flyover. Do you know which was the first? I think, Singapore’s first flyover was the Clemenceau Flyover. Anyway, I am basing all these on memory. You will have to ASK the good folks at the NLB if you want to verify my information. I remember that there was a very serious and fatal accident during the construction of this flyover. The completion of this flyover was big news in the papers. It was a simple affair compared to today’s enlarged version; with perhaps only 2 or 3 lanes in each direction. Subsequently, when I started work in Philips in Lorong 1 Toa Payoh, I used this flyover almost daily commuting to work from my home in Farrer Road. Photo shows the Thomson Flyover in the direction of Toa Payoh in 1971. Photo from the National Archives Picas collection.