Some time ago the KCR Corporation presented a proposal for a station at Tsim Sha Tsui.
It involved cutting away part of Signal Hill to build a station too short for the trains that would use it.
That half-baked idea was thrown out on environmental grounds and the KCRC went away to reconsider. Now there is a proposal in hand with full-length platforms that avoid Signal Hill and most of the trees.
A similar situation is developing over the new Lok Ma Chau line. The Advisory Council on the Environment refused to vote on the scheme. No doubt a bit more design effort will produce a better proposal here too.
One has to ask why the sub-standard schemes are put forward in the first place. The KCRC seems to think that any proposal should be approved, so long as it pays lip service to environmental matters. It then gets cross if it cannot have its own way. What arrogance. The corporation's main aim is to minimise expense and maximise profit and spend as little as possible on items that will not generate revenue. This seems to include design studies.
The report headlined, 'Panel fails to vote on sensitive rail link' (South China Morning Post, July 18), referred to comments made in the KCRC's staff newsletter by the company's capital projects senior director, James Blake, who said, 'At times we are all frustrated, especially as the chairman and the managing board are so supportive of the corporation's environmental policies.
