XN000022-1972-03-01 — Page 46

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Wednesday, March 1, 1972

Continuing, the Financial Secretary said: "So there is no doubt

that the underground railway is a complex and difficult project and the

Government certainly cannot at this stage say whether it will or will not

be built.

"What can be said, however, is that other aspects of Hong Kong's

growing traffic and transport problem will need to be tackled resolutely

in the coming years and I must give due warning that unpopular measures

will before long be necessary and will have to be adopted for the good

of the community as a whole."

Restraints Policy On Private Motorista

+

Earlier, the Financial Secretary had said that Government could not

be content with a restraints policy on private motorists alone to cope with

the movement problems of the 1970s and 1980s.

"We are pushing ahead with a road reconstruction and development

programme; and we are considering very carefully the proposal for an underground

railway."

Since the summer of 1971, a small working group of Government officers,

most closely concerned, had been meeting regularly to examine every aspect of

this proposal and to consider it in the context of an overall traffic and

transport policy for llong Kong.

"The group has just completed the first draft of a memorandum for

Executive Council and this is now being considered in the Colonial Secretariat."

Because of this, Mr. Haddon-Cave explained, he could not say a great

deal more about transport policy at the present time.

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