(9069) Dd.032652 3m 2/67 G.W.B.Ltd. - Ip.853
La
PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION
for WRITTEN answer December 1973
The draft reply should reach the Parliamentary Office through your Under-Secretary by
Mr Nigel Spearing (Acton): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whet plan exist for the construction of an underground railway system in Hong Kong; what is the likely capital expenditure; how it will be raised and how repaid; what overall transportation studies were made prior to the production of the rapid transit proposals; and when and by whom any final decision will be made.
The obvious increase of traffic on the roads, and the
belief that this would continue and even accelerate, led the
Hong Kong Government in the mid-1960's to commission three
major studies covering all aspects of transport within the
colony.
These were:
(a) the Hong Kong Passenger Transport Survey, prepared
in 1964-66 and published in 1967;
(b)
the Hong Kong Mass Transport Study, prepared in
1966-67 and published in 1968; and
(c)
the Long Term Road Study, prepared in 1967-68 and
published in 1968.
A major task for the consultants in all these studies was to
predict the demand for transport of all kinds in Hong Kong up
to the mid and late 1980's.
It was out of these studies that proposals for an
underground railway system emerged, and these proposals were ·
further examined and refined in further studies which were
completed in August 1970. The final proposals put forward were
for a system with 48 stations and a total route length of
32.7 miles, to be developed in nine distinct stages.
/The Hong Kong