30
PUBLIC WORKS AND TRANSPORT
77
I will begin with the Public Works programme partly
because it is too far likely to get left out of speeches
like this, but also because nothing is so illustrative
of the scale of activity necessary to provide for the
growth of the economic and social life of Hong Kong in
the next five or six years. This year the programme
will exceed $3,000 million, and may very well rise
next year.
This activity when coupled with that of
the private sector, is now so intense that Hong Kong
gives the impression of being one great construction
site.. I deeply sympathise with those who live and
work closest to the dust and noise and the traffic
diversions. But out of this inconvenient activity
will emerge, and emerge very soon, a Hong Kong that
is largely transformed from the city we have known.
So it is worth reminding ourselves what some of the
major projects are:
i)
By 1981 Aberdeen will be linked with the
Lion Rock tunnel by means of the Aberdeen
tunnel and a series of elevated highways and
flyovers. By 1985 the new motorway will be
built along the north coast of the Island
linking Victoria with Shaukeiwan.
In Kowloon
by 1980 the airport tunnel link with Kwuntong
will be completed, and the corridor up the
western side of the peninsula from Gascoigne Road
to Lai Chi Kok, already under construction,