1
40.
(ii) Public transport
During the year the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation
extended its electrified services to Lo Wu. The railway main
line from Hung Hom to Lo Wu is now also fully double-tracked. The more comfortable and faster service has proved to be very
popular, and some 150,000 passengers now use it every day, thus
reducing congestion on the main trunk road in the eastern New
Territories.
41.
In the past year, the two major franchised bus companies have increased their carrying
carrying capacities by about
15*, and introduced twelve new routes. They have recently completed their route development programmes for the next two years. These should result in further substantial improvements
to existing services and the opening of additional routes to
serve new development areas. Work on
on the Mass Transit Railway
Island line continues on schedule, and should, when completed
in late 1985, bring about a major reduction in travelling time
to and from the eastern part of Hong Kong Island.
42.
Although the first choice for a second vehicular
harbour crossing, a bridge at Lei Yue Mun, has been found to be impracticable in
in the near future for technical reasons, other
crossing options are being investigated. These include bored
or submerged tunnels at Lei Yue Mun, between Tai Koo Shing and
Cha Kwo Ling, or alongside the existing cross-harbour tunnel.
(iii) Air services
43.
Although we cannot, and indeed need not on present
traffic estimates, proceed with our plans for the development new airport, the airport terminal building at Kai Tak will
be expanded. This will ensure that the airport can continue to
handle efficiently our future air passenger traffic: this is
forecast to increase from
ten million passengers in 1984
to about 18 million passengers in 1990.
/44. Negotiations
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