A garbage depot and two fuel stations on Gloucester Road would be torn down to make way for a new lane that is crucial to easing the congestion at a junction where traffic from the east and the west meets, the Transport Department has proposed.
The department told the Wan Chai District Council yesterday that the new lane would be dedicated to traffic from the east to Aberdeen and Happy Valley, and it could absorb at least 60 per cent of the 1,600 vehicles that would otherwise squeeze into the inner section of Gloucester Road.
The district council hailed the plan, but a councillor said that without expanding the road leading up to the Canal Road flyover, there would not be an improvement in traffic flow within Causeway Bay.
The plan to widen the section of Gloucester Road outside Paterson Street has been on the agenda for more than 10 years, but it was not possible until the lease of the two fuel stations recently expired.
If approved, the new lane is expected to start service in 2010.
Simon Wong Siu-man, of the department, said yesterday that the new lane would not help cut the number of vehicles, but it would ensure traffic flow.
'The junction at Gloucester Road and Cleveland Street is now the meeting point for cars going into Causeway Bay and those heading to Aberdeen and Wan Chai. Queues at peak hour thus become so long that sometimes it regurgitates all the way back to North Point.'
