favour of the extension would be access to the Chaiwan depot
site orginally envisaged for MTR; no other site of this size
is available within the Island Corridor. A depot at Chaiwan is necessary in the longer term as well as a depot and work- shops at Kennedy Town, since the latter has inadequate capacity for the ultimate LRV fleet. The provision of a depot at both ends of the route also has the advantage of minimising dead mileage.
Central Area Tunnels
2.25
2.26
2.27
The possibility of operating Light Rail Vehicles in tunnel has already been noted, and it has been seen that an LRT system which uses the Admiralty-Pedder tunnel route has a better cost benefit performance than an entirely on-street system. There are three major reasons, in addition to this cost-benefit result, for considering a tunnel section in Central to be desirable. These are:
(i) creation of additional total public transport
capacity;
(ii) improvement of inter-modal interchange; and (iii) better control of passenger movements at the
principal boarding/alighting points.
Additionally, a higher speed service can be achieved.
Additional capacity is created initially not by the tunnel section itself, but by the release of the on-street tram right of way. This would be of substantial benefit to bus services, and allows the creation of a bus priority route to a central bus terminus from Hennessy Road and Queen's Road East. This is the most critical part of the road network from an overall volume/capacity point of view in the corridor, and it is also the point where the largest increase in bus flows is expected.
Inter-modal interchange would be enhanced by provision of cross platform interchange at Admiralty and transfer facilities at Pedder/Chater. Such facilities will be of benefit to both MTRC and the LRT operator.
26