Orchard Road has always been synonymous with shopping.

Singapore's premier shopping street has also often been associated with one other thing: traffic jams.

There are currently at least four areas in the Orchard area that are beset with traffic congestion problems. They are:

• The junction of Scotts Road and Paterson Road, where the long crossing times for pedestrians at traffic lights result in a bottleneck for cars heading to Orchard Road and Paterson Road;
• The stretch from Orchard Link towards Bideford Road, where vehicles entering Paragon compete for lane space with cars headed for the Central Expressway exit;
• The entrance to the Ngee Ann City shopping centre carpark along Orchard Turn, which is always jammed with cars and taxis, as well as the mall's loading bay at the side where heavy vehicles stop;
• The turn from Orchard Road into Handy Road to get to Plaza Singapura, where cars have to encroach into the bus lane to turn.

The soft opening of Ion Orchard on Tuesday is likely to bring even more traffic into the Orchard area, making the jams worse.

Even though the number of Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries has been increased in the area and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has made various improvements to the road system over the years, the congestion in these areas remains.

The agency's road planning divisions work closely with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Singapore Tourism Board with regard to the Orchard area's road network.

Yesterday, the LTA said it has just widened Paterson Road from four lanes to five lanes in both directions. There are now additional turning lanes from Paterson Road into Orchard Road and Orchard Boulevard.

Shopping malls, too, have come up with ways to ease the jam at their doorsteps.

Paragon deploys security officers to direct the cars and taxis entering its carpark area. Since last month, the mall has been offering a free valet service to shorten the car queue at its driveway.

Ngee Ann City has been employing Cisco guards on weekends to direct the traffic at its doorstep.

And when Ion Orchard opens, it will deploy traffic controllers along Orchard Boulevard and Orchard Turn.

Said sales manager Derek Ho, 36, who drives to his workplace in Ngee Ann City daily: 'The bad traffic has made me a workaholic. I try to reach the office very early by 8am and leave very late at 10pm. If not, I would just end up wasting time getting stuck in traffic jams.'

Mrs Sng Ngoi May, chairman of the Orchard Road Business Association, said: 'We have lived with the congestion for years. Fortunately, none of our members has complained about losing business because of it.'

Urban planning experts say the problem will only worsen in the future when the area's new shopping malls are fully up and Singapore's population increases.

The LTA said the challenge of managing Orchard's roads lies in having limited space to work with, contending with heavy vehicular traffic, as well as the need to balance pedestrians' needs with ensuring smooth traffic flow.

Veteran architect William Lim believes the crux of the problem lies in allowing private cars to freely drive through such a busy road.

'There is only so much that the LTA or the URA can do. Widening or opening more roads is not going to help as this will only lead to more cars entering Orchard.

'We need to figure out how we can still bring the crowds into the city without them having to drive in,' he said.

He suggests that Singapore follow the examples of Hong Kong's shopping belt and London's Oxford Street, where carpark space is very limited and can cost more than $10 an hour. Increasing ERP charges for private cars may also be a good idea, he said.

To divert pedestrian traffic away from busy road junctions, he suggests building a second-level travellator linking all the shopping malls along Orchard Road.

'This way, people can travel down Orchard Road without having to drive or walk too much,' he said. The URA already has something similar in mind.

Its long-term plans for Orchard Road include building a network of second-storey links between shopping malls, having sheltered and open pedestrian walkways as well as underground links.

The agency started by making these pedestrian links a pre-sale condition for the developers of new shopping malls, such as Ion Orchard and 313@Somerset.

Mr Lim said: 'Of course, motorists will complain. But to make Orchard Road a vibrant place, pedestrians must take precedence over cars.'

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This article was first published in The Straits Times.