Transport bosses reject cost-cutting plan, but engineers say options to be considered
Transport officials insisted that a proposal by a group of engineers that could cut the cost of the new high-speed cross-border railway by half was unfeasible, after the group explained its plan to them.
Nine members of the Professional Commons' railway expert group held a three-hour meeting yesterday on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong express link with the undersecretary for transport and housing, Yau Shing-mu, and officials from the Transport and Housing Bureau, Highways Department and MTR Corporation.
'Officials have raised important doubts about the proposal, from the scale of land resumption to the cost involved,' a bureau spokeswoman said after the meeting. She said there had been sufficient discussion on the issue since the plan was suggested in 2000, and the public hoped that construction could begin as soon as possible.
The official reaction contrasted markedly with the Professional Commons' view of the meeting. The group said the government had agreed to explore better options.
The meeting came a few days after the think tank proposed moving the line's Hong Kong terminus from West Kowloon to Kam Sheung Road in the New Territories. It said the change would mean the new line would cost HK$25 billion, much less than the HK$39.5 billion cost in an official government estimate in 2007, or the latest unofficial estimate of HK$50 billion.
'We had a harmonious meeting and the government - although it has been recommending the West Kowloon terminus option - says it is open to other options,' engineer Albert Lai Kwong-tak said, adding that he hoped the government could organise a forum to collect the public's views as soon as possible.
The group said it would also explain its proposal to the Legislative Council's transport panel and district councils.
