TNAG-0770-FCO40-974-Construction-of-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 121

2.5

2.6

2.7

There were two further key arguments in favour of this LRT line.

The first was to provide additional LRT capacity over

the central section of the Island Corridor to relieve the demand

on the Shau Kei Wan line. In practice, the alignment tested did not appear capable of fully achieving this objective. Nevertheless,

it has been shown that the higher capacity transit systems involve

substantial increments in capital and result in a need for high

fares: it remains a reasonable objective to attempt to provide

an alternative which would reduce the growth in demand for an

LRT route along the central section of the corridor.

The final argument for inclusion of the South Island Line

related to the problem of establishing a suitable site for an LRT depot on the north side of the Island. In practice it has

been possible to identify sites at Kennedy Town and A Kung Ngam

within reasonable reach of the existing tram line, and this effectively eliminates the need to build a line to Aberdeen/

Wah Fu in order to access a depot site.

In Interim Report 8, the results of the financial and cost-

benefit analysis of this route were weighed up against environmental

and feasibility considerations without reaching a final

conclusion. The points noted above would appear to militate

against the inclusion of this route in a recommended strategy,

and to these can be added one further point which has considerable

"practical relevance.

2.8

The Aberdeen Tunnel is due to open in 1980, and it will then be

possible to initiate express bus services via the tunnel.

is little doubt that such a service could be attractive,

1

There

offering

a significant improvement over the current services. In particular it may be noted that the volume/capacity ratio of the Aberdeen

tunnel is projected to be at a satisfactory level until well past 1991, which suggests a high performance can be achieved.

Subsequent introduction of a LRT service at higher fare levels

would not be achieved without some passenger resistance if the

parallel bus services were removed, as in the test of Option D.

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