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congestion and concluded that over the years there had been inefficiencies, including delays, inaction, uncertainties and inconsis ies in the implementation of Government policy and consequently the number of alternative options to electronic foad pricing had been reduced.
98. In the early 1970s, the number of private cars began to increase rapidly and the Government had the foresight to commission consultants to carry out a Comprehensive Transport Study that would assist in formulating a policy for the control of traffic congestion. Their report, submitted in 1976, concluded that without further restraint measures the number of private cars would increase from 124 000 in 1973 to about 370 000 in 1991. By using various model techniques the Comprehensive Tranport Study worked out the best policy option for the Government to follow in order to restrain the growth and usage of private cars to an acceptable level. It recommended a package of measures, including increasing the annual licence fees to four times the 1974 level so as to limit private car ownership by 1991 to 280 000 and the doubling of taxi fares and non-residential parking charges to reduce private vehicle usage. The Study report emphasized that as the use of private cars became more restricted by various restraint measures, taxis would become more popular and it was important that restraints on private cars must be accompanied by some control on the use of taxis by restricting the total number of taxis licensed and by increasing taxi fares.
99. The Government's White Paper on Internal Transport Policy was published in May 1979, some three years after the completion of the Comprehensive Transport Study, and contained proposals resulting from a comprehensive re-examination of the Government's transport policy. Whilst the White Paper did not commit the Government to accepting every detail in the recommendations of the Comprehensive Transport Study, it did accept the main conclusions and the measures recommended for limiting traffic congestion. The White Paper stated that even though the road system would continue to be developed as far as it was physically, environmentally, economically and financially feasible, the necessarily limited road system had to be used with the utmost economy which meant encouraging the use of public and discouraging private transport. It accepted the Comprehensive Transport Study proposal to discourage the growth of private motoring, using parking controls and various fiscal methods as instruments of restraint so as to limit the number of private cars to 280 000 by 1991. It accepted that taxis, which were even less efficient users of road space than private cars because they travelled without passengers for much of their time on the road and tended to congregate in the highly congested urban areas, had to be controlled by limiting their number and raising fares. The White Paper pointed out that any limitation in the number of private cars without a limit on the number of taxis would add to road congestion if those denied the use of cars switched to an unlimited supply of taxis. On parking controls the White Paper recognized that at locations threatened by unacceptable levels of road congestion, the supply of parking spaces and the charges for them were crucial in controlling road use by private cars and mentioned that a Working Group had been formed to consider how best to reconcile the need for parking facilities with the need to avoid congestion on surrounding roads.
100. Soon after the publication of the White Paper the Government commenced work on the implementation of its policy but in the process a number of serious weaknesses developed. These centred around the delays in securing agreement within the Administration to introduce the measures, the failure to implement the policy in a comprehensive and coherent manner and in the creation of uncertainty in respect of the parking and taxi control policies. In the early stages, the importance of speed in introducing the restraint measures was fully understood with a Transport Department discussion paper pointing out in August 1979 that Hong Kong was fortunate in that car ownership had not reached the level of other cities and that it was necessary to introduce the restrictions as soon as possible as it would be difficult to allow unrestrained growth and then at a later date impose very severe restrictions in a belated attempt to recover the situation. Unfortunately, the Government did not act in accordance with this advice and the situation that was predicted later came to pass. In January 1980 proposals for raising first registration tax and annual licence fees were submitted to the Financial Secretary by the Secretary for the Environment (who was then responsible for transport policy matters). However, the Financial Secretary, considering the proposals from the fiscal rather than the transport policy point of view, did not incorporate them in either his 1980 or in his 1981 budgets. Meanwhile, the number of licensed private cars had increased from 150 000 in 1979 to 190 000 in 1981 and it is not clear why the Secretary for the Environment did not act more decisively in dealing with the matter after the setbacks arising from the Financial Secretary's initial decision because it was open to him to put his proposals directly to the Executive Council for consideration. In the event, this is what was done but not until May 1982, by which time the traffic situation had become so bad that more severe measures than might otherwise have been considered necessary were introduced by the Secretary for Transport in order to check the growth of private cars.
101. Notwithstanding the severity of the increases in first registration tax and annual licence fees, the 1982 measures failed to approach the traffic congestion problem comprehensively. Two important elements in the package of proposals set out in the White Paper for controlling traffic congestion, namely parking and taxi controls, were omitted even though the Memorandum for the Executive Council mentioned that the limitation in parking facilities in central urban areas, together with high charges, did impose some restraint on car usage in busy areas and that this was a form of restraint which must increasingly be applied. However, in introducing his proposals to the Legislative Council the Secretary for Transport apparently contradicted this policy by announcing that there was no question of using the provision, or the deliberate lack of provision of car parking as a restraint on car usage in busy areas. A similar policy contradiction was evident in the Secretary's statement that no controls on taxis would be introduced because he regarded them as “a necessary and useful adjunct to public transport”.
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