ENG-1997 — Page 295

CHAPTER 15

TRANSPORT

DENSE urban development, the growth of new towns and sustained activity continue to place heavy demands on Hong Kong's transport system. Careful co-ordination and management are needed to ensure the smooth and efficient movement of people and goods. This involves a programme to improve the road network, expansion of public transport services and measures to achieve more economic use of the limited road capacity.

The Third Comprehensive Transport Study (CTS-3) was commissioned in August 1997 to formulate transport strategy and policy for the first two decades of the next century. Upon completion in early 1999, the study will provide recommendations for an integrated, up-to-date transport strategy and a plan for the development and provision of transport infrastructure and facilities up to 2011. It will also provide a broad indication of the longer-term transport demands and transport issues up to 2016.

Since the announcement of the Railway Development Strategy in December 1994, the government has pressed ahead with those projects recommended for priority implementation. The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) and the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) will respectively build and operate the West Rail (WR), from the north-western New Territories to West Kowloon, and the extension of the Mass Transit Railway to the Tseung Kwan O New Town. The two corporations are proceeding with detailed studies for the two projects, with a view to finalising agreements for government consideration in 1998. In December 1997, the government decided that the KCRC should be invited to build and operate a third project the Ma On Shan to Tai Wai rail link plus the extension of the Kowloon- Canton Railway to Tsim Sha Tsui -- and invited the corporation to submit its proposals in mid-1998. The three projects will cost a total of $110 billion and will be completed between 2002 and 2004.

A total of $25 billion will be spent on new roads up to 2002. Projects include construction of Route 16 between Sha Tin and West Kowloon; grade-separated interchanges at the junction of Pok Fu Lam Road and Sassoon Road and at Tsing Yi North Coastal Road; and improvements to Fo Tan Road, the Tolo Highway between Ma Liu Shui Interchange and the Island House Interchange and to the Island Eastern Corridor between North Point Interchange and Sai Wan Ho.

Major transport links with the new airport at Chek Lap Kok were opened in 1997. These included the Tsing Ma Control Area — a 17-kilometre highway system with four bridges, a tunnel and expressways and the third cross-harbour tunnel, the Western Harbour Crossing. Good progress is being made on the construction of

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