PUB's updates (in May) about Lorong Halus Wetland - water cooler and directions

6th May 2012 - I was cycling past the newly officially opened Lorong Halus Wetlands from Changi with my cycling kakis, Zendogs. I encountered a friend whose visitor was suffering from heat exhaustion. She was unable to direct a cab in as the operator kept thinking about Sungei Buloh once they heard the word "wetlands"; which is great for that park but not for this situation!

And I realised the only water point was in the toilet.

Hidayah and Sivasothi chatting while we waited for the taxi company to call us back
Photo by Kevin Lim

So we helped out, with some intense googling using both Google Maps and OneMap, then a forceful conversation with the confused taxi company's phone operator and eventually I directed a very patient taxi driver over the phone - he eventually had to do a U-turn in the farmway roads nearby before finally rescuing the heat-exhausted individual.

I wrote to PUB the following week to suggest a water point be instated outside the toilets. Although I happily filled up my water bottles from the sink there, some might hesitate!

I also suggested they provide a name for the shelter to direct taxi operators to, as well as relevant road signs and even a road name.

PUB's Lau Ying Shan wrote back quite soon after with some updates which I thanked him for:

• The name for the visitor structure is the ‘Educational Kiosk’, or ‘Edu-kiosk’ for short.
• There will be a water cooler at the Edukiosk very soon.
• They will look into the suggestion about a taxi information panel or its equivalent.
• They will investigate clearer road signs (it will be helpful for unfamiliar drivers).
• The address of Lorong Halus Wetland is 326 Lorong Halus, Singapore 536587. This can be found on SLA One Map [the building icon is numbered in OneMap but I probably missed that on the small screen of my iPhone], and also on Streetdirectory.com [which provides a unique entry for the EduKiosk as Lor Halus Kiosk]

Next time I'm there, I'll drop in for a look and provide feedback as required. It's helpful when the public does this as our user-experience can provide managers with helpful suggestions.

This post is late as it was in a forced hibernation in my drafts folder while I forgot about it, whoops!