ROAD CONSTRUCTION.
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37. During the year under review the Department may claim to have made satisfactory progress with new roads in Hongkong. The extension of Macdonnell Road to a junction with Kennedy Road was taken in hand on an estimate of $7,500 and completed at a cost of $6,992.03. It proved a difficult road to construct owing to the deep cuttings through rather loose material full of boulders, the heavy embankment at one point and the very hard and unworkable rock cutting at the lower end. The number of building lots sold in consequence of the opening of this road and the access thereby afforded to the sites was three, the premium realized $16,617, and annual Crown Rent secured $856.00. It must therefore be classed among the paying public works.
38. Although a vote on account of "Black's Link" appeared in the Estimates, it was decided that the work must be postponed, and only a small expenditure was incurred in keeping the rough path, which was made when the trace was being surveyed, open. Rough as it is, it is still a favourite walk with those requiring, either for business or pleasure, to visit Wongneichong Gap or Tytam from the Peak. It is to be hoped that the construction of a road so strongly urged by General BLACK will not be much longer delayed.
39. In the Report for 1898 reference was made to the projected road from the Upper Tram Station to High West and thence down to Upper Richmond Road. A vote of $1,000 enabled the Department to effec: great improvements in this, as a footpath, strengthening the bamboo staging, and making rough nasonry stream crossings, since which the road has been largely used. This road may be considered as forming part of a road to be constructed from Glenealy Ravine along the Pokfulam Conduit to the Victoria Battery and theuce up to High West, having its upper terminus at the Upper Tram Station. A commencement has been made at the lower end, and it is expected the road from the Tram Station will also be shortly in hands. No more valuable road has ever been projected in the Colony for opening up new building sites, and it is certain that in a few years the prime cost of the road would be recovered over and over again in the sale of land.
40. The purchasers of two building lots on the South side of Mt. Gough are bound under the conditions of sale to construct a road from Plunkett Gap to their houses. This may eventually be carried round the East end of the hill to join the Plantation Road, and will probably open up a few more sites.
41. The most notable progress, however, has been on the mainland.
At the commencement
of the year but a small sum of money ($3,902)--a revoted balance of former years-was available for the extension of Station Street North, Kowloon.
The taking over of the New Territory in April made it almost imperative that a road should be constructed giving access to the interior direct from British Kowloon. An examination of the ranges to the North shewed the only practicable pass to be through the hills above Cheung Sha Wan, where a gap 450′ above sea level was found. Tracing down from this at the easy gradient of 1 in 20 a junction with Station Street North, continued straight across the tidal flat East of Taikoktsui, was effected. Beyond the gap, the road still gradually rises to the summit level of 500 feet; it then falls to a second gap which forms the divide between the waters of Mirs Bay and Hongkong Harbour. Several trial traces were run from here, and eventually a very satisfactory one was adopted on easy down grades of 1 in 40 and 1 in 30 until the rice fields of Tai Wai Village are reached. Close to this village a large stream requiring 90 to 100 feet of waterway has to be crossed and the trace then skirts the sea-shore for some miles, past the villages of fla-wo-tsia, Fo-tan, Lok-lo-ha, turning again into the hills near Ma-quiu-shui where a gap only 320 feet above sea level has been found from which an easy trace to Tolo Harbour and Tái-pó-hü can be laid down.
The first mile of the road is carried on an embankment averaging about 10 feet high across a dal flat. The large stream which flowed into the top of this bay in numerous shallow branches, making the whole a brackish marsh, was diverted and carried in one channel down to the East end of the bay near Mongkoktsui and under a bridge of two 15 feet spans.
The second mile was through extremely difficult ground necessitating heavy cuttings and buildings and much rock work. From the first gap the work was easy, but little rock being met with.
There can be no doubt as to the importance and value of this road, the distance from the Kowloon Wharves to Mirs Bay is 9 miles; about 2 miles further on a Pier in deep water at low tides can be made; Táipó will be reached in 16 miles, and the northern boundary of the Territory in about 25. The inhabitants of hitherto remote inaccessible villages, lying among the hills to the north of the harbour, are already freely using this road to reach the markets in British Kowloon.
42. At the eastern side of British Kowloon Peninsula another extremely useful roal has been constructed from Hok-in to Kowloon City.
The old path was very circuitous, passing close to the sea shore in places, and again winding in and out between the hills with short lengths of steep gradients, and in the paddy fields dwindling to a mere track. The new road is very direct, the earth obtained from deep cuttings through the ridges being used to form straight embankments across the fields. Two rather large water courses had to be