South Island Line faces more costly delays
MTR Corporation says long-awaited line will not be ready until late 2016 - a year behind schedule
The long wait for a railway to the south of Hong Kong Island will get even longer, with the opening of the South Island Line pushed back a further six months, the MTR Corporation announced yesterday.
The delay - the latest in a series of setbacks for the MTR's ambitious expansion efforts - will also see the budget for the work rise HK$2.8 billion to HK$15.2 billion because of rising construction costs. The company will pick up the bill for the cost overrun.
The Highways Department was even more pessimistic, saying there was a "very high risk" that the new line would not even be ready in time for the new target date of late 2016. Until earlier this year, the line had been slated to open late next year.
Details of the delay - this year's second change in the line's target opening date - were revealed in a paper to the Legislative Council's subcommittee on railways. The problems have been blamed on the difficulty of excavation at Admiralty station, which is being vastly expanded to serve the 7km southern line to South Horizons in Ap Lei Chau and the Sha Tin to Central Link.
The MTR told the department in August that it was looking into blasting instead of mechanical digging to speed up the work at Admiralty.
"However, the MTR Corporation has yet to provide further information … to demonstrate the expected effects of blasting," the department said in the paper.