3
By 1983 the first half of the Tuen Mun highway will have been open for five years and the full six lanes for about three,
with consequent impetus for the development of industry and
population in the Tuen Mun/Yuen Long area.
Tuen Mun itself will by then be a city of about 375,000
and I should expect rapid development of all sorts to have taken
place in Yuen Long where an industrial estate will have been
established for several years. Tsuen Wen/Kwai Chung/Tsing Yi will
be a complex of over 800,000 people with accompanying industry,
and amenities and a cultural life of its own.
In the East, there will have been a comparable process
of opening up. The railway will have been double tracked and
possibily electrified, a coastal road will have been open for
several years between Sha Tin and Tai Po, and Sha Tin will have
become a virtual suburb of Kowloon with fast communications by a
four-lane highway and a high frequency train service interchanging with the Mass Transit Railway. I should expect it will also by
then have a direct road link with Tsuen Wan.
With the impetus of improved communications and more land.
for housing and industry, and with an industrial estate in its 5th or 6th year, and considerable public housing, Tai Po will have
developed fast and Sha Tin itself will contain over 450,000 people
and reach most of the way to Ma On Shan.
Ap Lei Chau will have been joined to Aberdeen by a bridge
for about four years, and Aberdeen to Wan Chai and the Cross Harbour
Tunnel by a tunnel and an over-head road for nearly three years,
with consequent implications for the development of the Aberdeen and
Pokfulam areas.
/1983