Safely Bicycling Lornie Highway

Summary

Use Kheam Hock road to access Lornie Highway. Cycle on the sidewalk adjacent to Lornie Highway towards (with traffic) / from (against traffic) Thomson or Braddell Roads.

Shown below is the turn off from Lornie Highway into Kheam Hock road.

Do not cycle on Lornie Highway itself. Technically it is legal and permitted but I strongly recommend against it. The lanes on Lornie Highway are narrower than usual and traffic is dense and fast moving.

Motivation

I live in the Bukit Timah area and sometimes need to get to the Thomson, Bishan, Hougang or Sengkang areas. As of November 2022, the most efficient route is through Lornie Highway. However as mentioned cycling on Lornie Highway itself is dangerous.

When travelling towards Thomson, you will have to filter right and avoid traffic getting in and out of the Pan Island Expressway. And do this while cycling uphill!

Similarly when travelling towards Bukit Timah you will also have to filter right to avoid traffic going in to the Pan Island Expressway. This is less scary as it is downhill and your speed is higher but I don’t recommend it for cyclists not experienced riding with dense motorised traffic.

Alternative routes attempted

I rode the Lornie park connector, but this meant pushing the bike over the overhead bridge to access the path at Sime Road and Lornie Highway.

Once the effort of pushing the bike up the overhead bridge and carrying it down to the junction of Sime Road and Lornie Highway, riding the sidewalk itself was a pleasure.

However I was thwarted because of construction that closed the park connector just before MacRitchie resevoir. I do not recommend this route.

To progress, I had to walk my bicycle over the construction to finally reach MacRitchie resevoir.

Thomson to Bukit Timah

I walked my bicycle across the pedestrian crossing for my return journey to Bukit Timah. After crossing, I rode up Lornie road (towards Bukit Timah), cycled the Lornie Highway sidewalk and exited at Kheam Hock road.