ENG-1960 — Page 270

PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

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and Sham Shui Po, Mong Kok, Jordan Road and Kowloon City on Kowloon Peninsula. The Company also operates the only com- bined vehicular and passenger ferry service across the Harbour between Jubilee Street and Jordan Road, and by the end of 1961 will be operating a second service for vehicles only, between North Point and Kowloon City. On 15th January 1960 a temporary vehicular ferry service opened between Rumsey Street and Jordan Road. This service began within less than nine weeks of its con- ception and gives a supplementary service until the new vehicular ferry piers are ready.

During 1960, a record number of 98,876,000 passengers and 1,706,000 vehicles were carried, an increase of 4,271,000 passengers and 214,000 vehicles over the previous year.

Ferry services to outlying districts were well supported during the year. During the religious festival at Cheung Chau in May over 19,000 passengers were carried to and from the Island in one day. Silver Mine Bay and Peng Chau ferries also carried large numbers of holidaymakers and villagers during the year. The Tai O service carried large numbers of pilgrims and hikers to the monasteries and nunneries of Lantau Island. The Tolo Harbour ferry service again operated at a loss for the benefit of isolated villages in the district and the service to Tsing Yi - Tsuen Wan continued to be popular, carrying over 1,189,000 passengers during the year.

New construction during the year consisted of the double-ended ferry vessel the Man Tim, with a passenger carrying capacity of 800, and the launching in October of the first of four new vehicular ferries for the eastern vehicular ferry service, which is expected to join the fleet in January 1961. The completion of these vehicular ferries has been delayed by several months because of late delivery of Voith Schneider propellers ordered from Scotland. Throughout the year the three slipways at the Company's depot at Tai Kok Tsui were fully engaged in servicing the fleet.

PUBLIC ROAD TRANSPORT SERVICES

The question of the operation in the Colony of large numbers of illegal taxis, known in the vernacular as 'pak pai che' (literally

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