ENG-2010 — Page 311

Transport 257

Parking

On-street parking is provided where there is a demand and where traffic conditions permit. At year-end, Hong Kong had about 18 000 parking spaces with electronic parking meters in operation. These parking spaces are managed and operated by a private operator under a contract with the Government.

The Government owns 14 multi-storey car parks plus the Sheung Shui Park-and-Ride Public Car Park and an open-air car park near the Lantau Link View Point, together providing about 7 900 parking spaces. They are run by two private operators under government contracts.

In addition to government car parks, off-street public parking is provided by the Airport Authority at the Hong Kong International Airport, the Housing Department and The Link REIT in some public housing estates, and by the private sector in multi-storey commercial/residential buildings and open-air public car parks. Park-and-ride facilities are operated by MTRCL at Choi Hung Station on the Kwun Tong Line, at Hong Kong, Kowloon and Tsing Yi Stations on the Airport Express, Hung Hom Station on the East Rail Line, Kam Sheung Road Station on the West Rail Line, and at some commercial car parks located near Olympic Station on the Tung Chung Line and Hang Hau Station on the Tseung Kwan O Line. In all, there are 207 000 off-street public parking spaces (excluding those in Government car parks).

Road Safety

Traffic accidents involving death and injury increased by 4.4 per cent in 2010. There were 14 943 traffic accidents, of which 2 052 were serious and 114 were fatal. This compares with 14 316 accidents in 2009, of which 1943 were serious and 126 were fatal.

In-depth investigations were carried out at 100 traffic accident blackspots to identify common accident causes. Remedial measures were recommended for 90 of these locations. Comprehensive route studies were conducted on two selected rural roads with a view to reducing crashes along the routes in a more holistic manner, and to reviewing their safety performance with proposed recommendations to improve safety.

In order to further combat 'drink driving' and 'dangerous driving', the 'Road Traffic (Amendment) Ordinance 2010' was enacted on December 17, 2010 to impose stricter penalties for drink driving and dangerous driving, comprising (1) introduction of a 3-tier penalty system with sliding scale according to different levels of blood alcohol concentration; (2) introduction of a new offence of 'causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving'; (3) inclusion of 'circumstances of aggravation' in all dangerous driving offences' and (4) introduction of consecutive implementation of the imprisonment term and the driving disqualification period to drivers who are convicted of serious driving offences on second and subsequent convictions.

The Government's road safety strategy during the year centred around a campaign entitled 'Zero Accidents on the Road, Hong Kong's Goal' which carried