238 Transport
The South Island Line (East) will be a medium capacity railway line running between Admiralty and South Horizons with three intermediate stations at Ocean Park, Wong Chuk Hang and Lei Tung Estate. The railway scheme was gazetted under the Railways Ordinance in July 2009 to enable construction to commence in 2011 for completion by 2015.
The Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link is a 26-kilometre long underground railway providing a new terminus at West Kowloon with a link to the boundary at Huanggang to connect with the Mainland section. Trains will be able to run through a 26-kilometre-long tunnel at a maximum speed of 200 kilometres per hour. Upon completion, the journey time between Guangzhou and Hong Kong by train will be reduced from 100 minutes to about 50 minutes. Passengers from Hong Kong will take only four hours to arrive at Changsha and Xiamen, five hours to Wuhan and Fuzhou, and eight and 10 hours to Shanghai and Beijing without changing trains.
The railway scheme was first gazetted in November 2008, with amendments gazetted in April 2009 and authorisation by Chief Executive in Council in October 2009. Construction is expected to start in 2010 for completion by 2015.
Since the adoption of a 'Dedicated Corridor' option for the Express Rail Link, the Northern Link has become a separate project. It will connect the West Rail Line at Kam Sheung Road to the boundary-crossing point at Lok Ma Chau. Together with the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line of the East Rail Line, the Northern Link will form a strategic corridor connecting the West Rail and the East Rail Lines. The Government is reviewing the proposal.
The Chief Executive announced in his 2007-08 Policy Address an initiative to foster closer Hong Kong-Shenzhen Airport Co-operation and to study the feasibility and economic benefits of establishing the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Express Line (formerly the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Airport Rail Link), to capitalise on the synergy of their complementary flight networks. The joint preliminary study of the rail link proposal, commissioned by the governments of both sides, was completed in 2008. In August 2009, they signed a co-operation agreement on the next steps of the project.
Road Projects under Construction
Major road projects under construction include:
A Central-Wan Chai Bypass and Island Eastern Corridor Link: to form part of an east-west strategic route along the northern shore of Hong Kong Island to alleviate traffic congestion there. It is a 4.5-kilometre-long dual three-lane trunk road with a 3.7-kilometre-long tunnel. Construction started in July and is being carried out within the Central Reclamation Phase III area. Work on the other sections of the carriageway began in December and is going on in stages. The carriageway is scheduled for completion by 2017.
• Reconstruction of Tuen Mun Road: the aim of this project is to bring the expressway's dual three-lane carriageway up to current standards and to
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