TNAG-0735-FCO40-939-Policy-objective-for-the-developing-of-Hong-Kong-in-the-1980-1978 — Page 205

30

PUBLIC WORKS AND TRANSPORT

77

I will begin with the Public Works programme partly

because it is too far likely to get left out of speeches

like this, but also because nothing is so illustrative

of the scale of activity necessary to provide for the

growth of the economic and social life of Hong Kong in

the next five or six years. This year the programme

will exceed $3,000 million, and may very well rise

next year.

This activity when coupled with that of

the private sector, is now so intense that Hong Kong

gives the impression of being one great construction

site.. I deeply sympathise with those who live and

work closest to the dust and noise and the traffic

diversions. But out of this inconvenient activity

will emerge, and emerge very soon, a Hong Kong that

is largely transformed from the city we have known.

So it is worth reminding ourselves what some of the

major projects are:

i)

By 1981 Aberdeen will be linked with the

Lion Rock tunnel by means of the Aberdeen

tunnel and a series of elevated highways and

flyovers. By 1985 the new motorway will be

built along the north coast of the Island

linking Victoria with Shaukeiwan.

In Kowloon

by 1980 the airport tunnel link with Kwuntong

will be completed, and the corridor up the

western side of the peninsula from Gascoigne Road

to Lai Chi Kok, already under construction,