ENG-1958 — Page 286

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

frontier station of Lo Wu numbered 645,583 and the majority of these travelled between Hong Kong and China. At present, passengers passing from British to Chinese territory or vice versa walk the 300 yards separating the two termini.

Statistics for 1958 (with figures for 1957 in brackets) are as follows:

Length of line

:

Main line--22 miles

Total length of line-35 miles

Main points of call

:

New Territories (Hong Kong)

Passengers carried

:

Freight carried

:

238,114 tons (203,954)

Passenger miles

5,308,695 (5,630,519)

: - 65,802,829 miles (73,299,030)

ROADS

With the construction during the year of sixteen miles of new road, there are about 479 miles of road in Hong Kong. There are 187 miles of road in Victoria and the rest of the Island; 126 miles in Kowloon; and 166 in the New Territories. Almost all are sur- faced with concrete or asphalt and carry heavy traffic, being now used by over 36,500 vehicles.

Most of the roads were built before the war and were of light construction. The huge increase in traffic has necessitated a con- tinuous programme for reconstructing these roads to heavier specifications. Unfortunately, much of the newly completed work is seriously damaged by the large number of trench openings cut into all roads by the various utility services providing supplies to the redeveloped buildings-a problem to which there does not appear to be any very satisfactory solution despite the close co-operation of all the parties concerned. Since many of the roads were originally only rickshaw or chair tracks, their alignment and width are not suited to modern traffic. Resumption of private land has therefore been necessary in many cases to obtain adequate widths and to eliminate dangerous corners. In these circum- stances road improvements have to be a compromise between what is needed to provide really adequate roads and the amount of private land which can reasonably be resumed. During the year $3,000,000 was voted for compensation for owners of prop- erty affected.