TNAG-0276-FCO40-312-Plans-for-construction-of-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-1970 — Page 25

Pir. 343

area over the next 16 years. I will be recalled that the operations

of the 2 major bus-companics, the tram company and the PLBS already constitute a mass-transit system. If that system is further impeded, as it certainly will be, by a critical shortage of kerbside space the:: public transport in Hong Kong must be expected to decline in speed and frequency while at the same time operating costs will rise and traffi congestion will occur in all tr: older-established parts of the urban There are then strong reasons emanating just from the shortage of kerbside-space for creating a mass transit system which will be

separated from the road-systcr.

area.

32.

Maintaining Molity. Overlapping the advocacy for a Subway System arising from the shortage of kbside space are other more general arguments which are no less weighty notwithstanding they are less specific. These arguments see the requirement for a Subway System as the natural consequence of the high densities of development which have taken place in the last 20 years combined with minimum standards of road-design and the very limited scale of clearance and improvement in the older urban area. Significant planned reduction in these densiti.s cannot be anticipated since it would involve serious social disruption. Improvement in surface transpor: which involves new highway construction

is limited by similar considerations.

33.

It is extremely difficult to discern any satisfactory and

realistic alternative to tl construction of an extensive subway syst、 1

if even the present degree of mobility in the urban area is to be

maintained. Certainly it is only by means of a subway system that there is any hope of improving that mcbility. It is therefore the opinion.

of the Director of Public Works and of the Commissioner for Transport

that the administration and productive capability of the Colony, which

depend in no small measure on increasing internal mobility, will be

progressively prejudiced unless all the various ways of maintaining

mobility which are open to us are adop ́ed in such degree as to produce

the maximum combined effect.

34.

The existence of a subway syntem is the only positive means

available of providing a safe, fast, reliable and capacious overall

public transport system for the future. When it is introduced it will

not only ensure the greate. mobility of Hong Kong's principal asset -

its working people; it will so ensure the adequacy of the road-system for the raw materials, industrial production and of the other people and goods which by their nature must be transported on the road surface. It should be remembered that the road cystem now planned for completion in 1986 will have to carry the enhanced volume of goods traffic and more than the present volume of passengers even if the subway system

is built as recommended.

CONFIDENTIAL