XN000022-1997-02-13 — Page 6

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"The three-lane Jordan bound carriageway will be reduced to one lane before entering the Yau Ma Tei Interchange with speed limit reduced from 80 km per hour to 50 km. Motorists will experience some delay at this point when exiting WKE.

"The situation will be improved upon the opening of all the slip roads when WHC commences its operation.

"Furthermore, we expect that the queue-up would be confined to the southern end of WKE and will not affect the traffic of the local road network. The Transport Department will closely monitor the situation and make any necessary improvements."

Mrs Kwok noted that there are still road work along Canton Road, Ferry Street and Jordan Road.

"To avoid overloading these local roads, motorists from Kwai Chung/Lai Chi Kok heading for Cross Harbour Tunnel (CHT) or Hung Hom are advised to use the West Kowloon Corridor instead of the new WKE/KCV.

"The opening of the new roads will help enable some of the traffic for South Kowloon to bypass the traffic heading towards CHT and Hung Hom along the parallel routes such as West Kowloon Corridor and Nathan Road," she said.

Upon the opening of WHC, Mrs Kwok noted there would be a new network of access roads connecting to the tunnel on both sides of the harbour (Annex A) with appropriate road signs directing traffic.

As for the Sai Ying Pun Section of Route 7, it is a 1.7 km dual two-lane elevated structure along Connaught Road West linking Rumsey Street Flyover in the east and Belcher Bay Link in the west,

Near its western end, it links up with the existing Hill Road flyover serving as a connection for traffic from Pokfulam area.

Senior Engineer (Central and Western) of Transport Department, Mrs Sorais Lee, noted that the opening of this section would provide a bypass to the existing congested ground level road network at Sai Ying Pun and would help improve the local traffic situation in the area.

Mrs Lee said there would be five new or modified junctions opened at the same time when WHC starts operation (Annex A).