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Dire predictions behind decision to build HK$10b rail link prove to be unfounded

The arguments for building the Lok Ma Chau spur line looked unassailable in the aftermath of the chaos during the Ching Ming festival in  spring  1998.

Grave-sweepers and holidaymakers had overwhelmed facilities at the Lo Wu crossing, leaving passengers queuing for up to four hours to get through.

Daily border crossings were tipped to double  to 429,000 a day within 13 years  and officials were insisting it was impossible to extend the  immigration building to cope.

The spur line would provide much-needed relief to the '19th-century' facilities at Lo Wu, proponents said. A new town at Kwu Tung, on the line's route, was on the drawing board.

How times have changed. The new town, which, with a projected 100,000 population would have provided a quarter of the line's passengers, is  on indefinite hold. The site of the station  is still a cavern, even though the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation has installed a platform underground in case the project is resurrected.

The double-digit annual growth in cross-border traffic between 1996 and 1999 has slowed to single-digit figures. Last year, passenger numbers  rose just 2.3 per cent to 241,000 a day.

And the 'impossible' has been achieved. Although the Lo Wu immigration building was not expanded,  facilities were extended with many more counters and improvements like the e-channel electronic clearing system. The maximum waiting time has been slashed to half an hour.

Add the  blossoming of cross-border buses through Lok Ma Chau  and the KCRC's  forecasts of passengers being 'stranded on every station along East Rail' appear apocalyptic.

The number of people crossing Lok Ma Chau in vehicles has surged tenfold, from 5 million in 1997 to 49 million last year.

Hung Wing-tat, associate professor in Polytechnic University's department of civil engineering, says the government and the KCRC have set themselves up for a fall. The 'fragmented and isolated' spur line -  conceived as part of a  loop around the central New Territories - is 'set to lose a lot of money', he predicts.

Ironically, if that happens it will be due in no small part to the government's efforts to make the Lo Wu experience a lot less miserable.

Despite seeing  nearly double the number of cross-border passengers, from 59.3 million in 1997 to 92.7 million last year,  the Immigration Department's performance pledge to process 92 per cent of all passengers within 30 minutes has been achieved.

'There was only an increase of about 60 per cent in manpower in the last 10 years and the total traffic increase for the same period was nearly double, but we have been able to meet our performance pledge for the past 10 years in the provision of a smooth passenger clearance,' said  a department spokesman.

This is bad news for the KCRC, which - based on a fare of HK$20  and last year's operating profit margin of 45.9 per cent - will need 43 to 54 years to earn a return on the HK$10 billion investment even if the projected 55,000 to 70,000 passengers a day are achieved.

First proposed in 1994 as part of the Western Corridor in the government's first Rail Development Study, it was shelved in 1996, but after the Ching Ming chaos of 1998, the government asked the KCRC to revive it.

Before work had even begun the project ran into a major snag when the Environmental Protection Department rejected plans for a viaduct across the Long Valley wetland, forcing the KCRC to put a tunnel under the bird-watching haven and sending costs soaring from HK$8 billion to HK$10 billion.

It was the latest  setback for a  HK$30 billion grand plan, comprising a long-distance freight link from the container port in Kwai Chung to Lo Wu, an additional cross-border passenger service at Lok Ma Chau and a high-speed rail link between urban Kowloon and the northwest New Territories. The network would have created a continuous loop from  Kowloon Station, weaving past Kam Tin to join the spur line at Kwu Tung. A feeder line - later to be resurrected as West Rail - would go from Kam Tin to Tuen Mun, with the whole project completed by 2001.

The plan was shelved in 1996 because of objections by mainland officials.

'The original network was a continuous loop, an extensive network serving the most developed areas of the New Territories and spurring development along the rail lines in its own right,' Dr Hung said.

'But they have had problems with implementation. Parts of the project keep getting delayed. If the Northern link was built then it would have added at least another 30,000 passengers a day to the spur line who now take the bus from Yuen Long to Sheung Shui.

'The North link that would connect West Rail to the border and East Rail has now been pushed back to 2014. Who knows when it will really get built?'

Leung Kong-yui, a  transport expert and  former member of the Transport Advisory Committee, said: 'There is a question mark on who will take the spur line. If you are in west Kowloon, would you go to Mong Kok, take the East Rail and change in Sheung Shui for the spur line? Why don't you just take a cross-border coach? The only advantage for the spur line is that the journey will have less hassle.'

But Mr Leung said people should not blame the KCRC.

'This is not their fault, or anybody's fault. This is just unfortunate. When the spur line project was launched, it was aimed to resolve a real congestion problem in Lo Wu.

'There were unforeseeable changes that happened in the past few years. Nobody could have predicted that the smart ID card would significantly speed up immigration procedures.

'And people could not foresee at the time the blossoming of cross-border buses.

'This is a market-driven phenomenon that happened out of the government's control. So I would not say it was a wrong decision to build the spur line.'

Sammy Chow Hing-wong, secretary-general of Hong Kong Guangdong Boundary Crossing Bus Association, was confident buses would be able to cope with the new competition.

'We do think the opening of the spur line will have an effect on our business,' Mr Chow said. 'We may have to slash fares and reduce the number of buses to lower operation costs. But we are not overly worried. We have no drastic plan of action; we will just wait and see.'

Slow train to China

Cost to build Lok Ma Chau Spur line: HK$10b

Original (1999) projection for cross-border passengers each day at Lo Wu for 2013: 429,000

Current (2006) cross-border passengers each day at Lo Wu: 241,000

Estimated minimum time to recoup cost: 43 years



Who'll take the Lok Ma Chau spur line?