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Voice in Legco
Voice in Legco - Let Tunnel Takeover Help Ease Traffic Congestion

Instead of regarding the takeover of the Tate’s Cairn Tunnel as simply a technical task, the Government should think about how to ease the protracted above-capacity tunnel traffic during peak hours.

 

The Government will take over the Tate’s Cairn Tunnel (TCT) when its 30-year “build, operate and transfer” franchise expires in the middle of this year. However, the Government should not regard the takeover as simply a technical change of ownership to provide a legal basis and management model for the continued operation of the tunnel. Instead, it should adopt a wider perspective and take other land tunnels and road harbour crossings (“RHCs”) into account to think about how to achieve rational traffic distribution across Hong Kong and ease the protracted above-capacity rush-hour tunnel traffic so that motorists and public transport commuters do not have to suffer traffic jams.

 

Uneven traffic flow in six tunnels

The TCT, which connects Sha Tin and Diamond Hill, is one of the major transport routes linking the New Territories and Kowloon East. Over 60,000 vehicles passed through the TCT every day on average in 2017. The TCT’s location, together with the other two land tunnels linking Kowloon and Sha Tin (i.e. the Lion Rock Tunnel (“LRT”) and the Eagle’s Nest and Sha Tin Heights Tunnels (“Route 8K”)) and the three RHCs play an important role in the major transport routes connecting Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories East.

 

Restricted by the road network design and destinations and because of the differences in their geographical locations, the six tunnels are not evenly distributed in terms of traffic flow, resulting in some tunnels, e.g. the Cross-Harbour Tunnel (“CHT”), the Eastern Harbour Crossing (“EHC”), the LRT and the TCT, often experiencing congestion due to their better locations for traffic connections, with tunnel traffic exceeding the design capacity. The CHT is the most seriously congested tunnel as its average hourly southbound and northbound traffic flow during the morning and evening rush hours is more than 70% over the design capacity. The traffic at the EHC and the TCT exceeds the design capacity by nearly 40% and that at the LRT is 46% over the design capacity.

 

Tackle symptoms rather than root cause

The above-capacity traffic flow at these major tunnels not only affects motorists, but even more so members of the public who rely on public transport. They have to endure traffic congestions while traveling to and from work every day. Tunnel traffic jams will also increase the traffic load on the connecting roads, causing congestion in wider areas. For example, peak-hour traffic jams at the CHT will cause varying degrees of traffic congestions in Hong Kong Island’s Happy Valley, Wan Chai and even the Aberdeen Tunnel, as well as Kowloon’s Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan areas.

 

However, it is not easy to tackle the root cause of the problem as several major tunnels have already concluded urban planning and design. Since fundamental changes are not possible, we can only look to alleviating the symptoms.

 

Toll adjustment options dubious

Late last year, the Government completed preliminary findings of the study on the rationalization of traffic distribution among the six tunnels. The assessment studied several options proposed by the public, including “lower EHC tolls to align with CHT tolls”, “lower TCT tolls to align with LRT and Route 8K tolls”, “unify the tolls of three RHCs by raising CHT tolls and lowering WHC tolls to align with those of EHC”, “unify the tolls of three RHCs by raising CHT tolls and lowering WHC and EHC tolls”, and “lower the tolls of all six tunnels”. The Transport Department said that it is now analyzing the impact of toll adjustments on the traffic flow at the various tunnels and it plans to submit specific and feasible toll adjustment proposals to the Legislative Council. The tolls on the government tunnels will be revised if a public consensus can be reached.

 

However, relevant evaluations found that all the above five toll adjustment options will not help resolve the problem of above-capacity traffic flow during peak hours. It is even expected that by 2021, it will take a longer time to pass through the tunnels than it is today, affecting about two million tunnel users on a daily basis. The options will not only incur high social costs, but also are not in the public interest.

 

Smart Mobility opens up opportunities

Therefore, I hope that with the advancement of technology, the Government will be able to intelligently ease the congestions at the tunnels through Smart City development. One of the major areas covered in the Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong announced late last year is Smart Mobility, which includes engaging the public to develop a detailed Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) Pilot Scheme in Central and its adjacent areas in 2019 in light of the results of the feasibility study and installing traffic detectors in all strategic roads to provide real-time traffic information by 2020.

 

However, the ERP Pilot Scheme has failed to take off despite repeated studies, just like the distribution of tunnel traffic, on which the Government had conducted three studies. Therefore, I hope that the Government will, with the greatest determination, resolve the tunnel traffic congestion problem that has plagued the public for more than a decade.

 

This is a free translation. For the exact meaning of the article, please refer to the Chinese version.

Should you have any comments on the article, please feel free to contact Mr Martin Liao.
Address : Rm 703, Legislative Council Complex, 1 Legislative Council Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel : 2576-7121
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Email: legco.office.liao@gmail.com