Tampines MRT station is a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station on the East West (EWL) and Downtown (DTL) lines in Tampines, Singapore. Situated at the heart of the Tampines town centre next to Tampines Avenue 4, Tampines Central 4 and Tampines Central 5, it is in close proximity to the Tampines and Tampines Concourse bus interchanges. The station also serves the surrounding retail developments of Tampines Mall, Tampines One and Century Square. The EWL station opened on 16 December 1989 as part of the MRT eastern line extension to Pasir Ris station via this station. On 20 August 2010, it was announced that the station would interchange with the DTL by 2017. The DTL station, which isn't directly connected to the existing EWL station, was completed on 21 October 2017. The EWL station exterior has the characteristic dome-shaped segmented roof also seen on other elevated EWL stations, while the DTL station features The Big Round & The Tall Long, an art piece by Studio Juju, as part of the MRT network's Art-in-Transit programme. History East West line (EWL) In the planning stages of the MRT network, there were two proposed stations, tentatively named "Tampines North" and "Tampines South", on the EWL, with Tampines North being its eastern terminus. The station was later constructed as part of the section between Pasir Ris station and Tanah Merah station, which in turn was part of Phase 2A of the MRT system. Contract 306 for the construction of the stations from Changi Depot to Pasir Ris and of tracks was awarded to Sato Kogyo Pte Ltd at a contract sum of S$91.89 million (US$ million) in March 1986. The contract also included the construction of the Pasir Ris and Simei stations. The station opened on 16 December 1989 when the EWL extends to Pasir Ris as announced by then-first deputy prime minister Goh Chok Tong on 4 November that year. The opening of the station was generally welcomed by residents in Tampines and Pasir Ris, who hoped for shorter travelling times to their workplaces in the city via the MRT. Tampines station was one of the first five MRT stations to be retrofitted with lifts and ramps in 2002, alongside enhancement works such as toilets for the disabled. These works, which cost , were part of a system-wide programme to make the MRT network more wheel-chair accessible. The programme comes after lobbying by