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respectively. The crossing would carry traffic as soon as it opened, as industrial and residential development would proceed with a decision to build a crossing. preliminary estimate is 16,000 vehicles per day on opening.
A connection to Lantau, and the resulting changes in transport patterns have not been considered in the planning and construction of present routes in the approach corridors. This is not an oversight, or a shortcoming of earlier work, but rather a fact to be recognized in the face of a major new decision. It is pointed out, however, that what may appear as the most logical approach to Lantau, the new Castle Peak road corridor, may not be able to carry the extra traffic from Lantau. This makes the alternate approach, via Tsing Yi and Ma Wan Islands of particular interest. In this latter case, as the roads on Tsing Yi have not been built they can be designed to take extra traffic. It is apparent that until the fate of a new town on Lantau is known the traffic on the crossing is unknown. Equally apparent is the inability of four lanes of mixed highway traffic to carry the passengers generated by a new town of the size postulated above. If they are to use a corridor to Tsuen Wan and Kowloon, mass tran-
sit must supplement the highway lanes. The report shows that mass transit can be added to a highway bridge in the Ma Wan - Tsing Yi corridor, but not in the Castle Peak road corridor.
Crossing Types
A broad range of crossing types were investi- gated and eight fixed crossings of the main channels are detailed. They cover bridges and tunnels, and some have provisions for the passage of very large ships of the future, while others could handle only those now using these channels. The results of a just completed sparker geophysical survey indicate that continuous sea-bottom sediments suitable for dredging and sinking a tunnel are not present. The feasibility of tunnel construction is therefore doubtful, as extensive rock outcroppings would add an indeterminate expense and mean slow con- struction progress. The same survey confirms that bridge
construction would not face the uncertainties of construc- ting piers on deep, soft layers of sediments, but on the contrary that bridge piers would be founded on rock, although possibly weathered.
Preliminary
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