TNAG-0426-FCO40-472-Construction-of-an-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 207

(9069) Dd.032652 3m 2/67 G.W.B.Ltd. Gp.863

La

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION

for │WRITTEN | answer on December 1973

139w1

Hong Kongou

The draft feply should

reach the Parliamentary ZW

Office through your Under-Secretary by

3.h

Noon Tuesday 4/121

Mr Nigel Spearing (Acton): To ask the Secretar y of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what plans exist for the construction of an underground railway system in Hong Kong; what is the likely capital expenditure; how it will be raised and how repaid; what overall transportation studies were made prior to the production of the rapid transit proposals; and when and by whom any final decision will be made.

Mr. Anthony Royle.

The obvious increase of traffic on the roads, and the

belief that this would continue and even accelerate, led the

Hong Kong Government in the mid-1960's to commission three

major studies covering all aspects of transport within the

colony. These were:

(a) the Hong Kong Passenger Transport Survey, prepared

in 1964-66 and published in 1967;

(b)

the Hong Kong Mass Transport Study, prepared in

1966-67 and published in 1968; and

(c)

the Long Term Road Study, prepared in 1967-68 and

published in 1968.

A major task for/the consultants in all these studies was to

predict the demand for transport of all kinds in Hong Kong up

to the mid and late 1980's.

It was out of these studies that proposals for an

underground railway system emerged, and these proposals were

further examined and refined in further studies which were

completed in August 1970. The final proposals put forward were

for a system with 48 stations and a total route length of

32.7 miles, to be developed in nine distinct stages.

/The Hong Kong