That car could cost you $1.6m over the years

[arthur]

ty my earlier simpler idea may work for this congested place - rid of the road and re-convert it to a ground level big broad shopper walkway with greenery park..how nice it will be..(why is there still need a parallel road on the ground when there is already a red sub-way line beneath it?)

regarding the multiple lines gg through orchard road via dhoby ghaut station, it just shows there is no intention of the de-centralisation plan at all..

why is it so many lines like to cut/intersect at city area?

Nothing is impossible for engineering a road beneath the Orchard Road. A road beneath the existing Orchard MRT line is fully feasible with a further distance inclination entrance/exit at opposite ends.
Perhaps one end at Istana Park while the other from Mount-E hospital side.
The Boston Big Dig and the Florence tunnel beneath the city centre were even bigger challenges. Closer to home, the KL SMART tunnel showed the feasibility of construction through large shield tunnelling methods.
All in all, the reason is simply Cost-Benefit analysis.

The Cross Island line is the first decentralised MRT line.
The reason of why so many lines like to cut/intersect at city area is simply being that the largest commerical/shopping hub is at city centre thus all current lines are being brought to intersect at this area.

However, the "recent" annoucements of decentralisation of central business hub towards East, West and soon North hubs showed the elites finally willed themselves to this idea at last.
Actually the decentralisation hubs idea was way back a decade at least.
Tampines Regional Centre was the first hub and it was moderately successful.
Sorry I can't reveal too much. But let's just say the elites finally pushed themselves to decentralise the commerical centres.

These have two fold effects:
1. Increase the land value across the island instead of only city central.
2. Decrease the traffic conjestion coming towards city area in morning and backwards in the evening. (Hopefully!)