Cost of railway could be halved with NT terminus, engineers say

The cost of the new cross-border railway could be cut in half if its Hong Kong terminus was moved from West Kowloon to Kam Sheung Road in the New Territories, a group of engineers said yesterday.

It would also reduce the amount of land to be taken, save a village from demolition and - if a link was built from the terminus to the airport express's Tsing Yi station - cut travelling times for four million commuters, the group said.

Using the building works tender price index - the government's benchmark to calculate project costs - group spokesman Albert Lai Kwong-tak said the proposed alignment would cost only HK$25 billion, compared to the official 2007 estimate of HK$39.5 billion and the latest unofficial estimate of about HK$50 billion.

But the Transport and Housing Bureau said the group's figure was a 'grotesque underestimation' and the number of people affected might in fact double the 150 Tsoi Yuen village households being moved to make way for a depot.

Lai's group suggested putting the terminus at Kam Sheung Road, which is also a West Rail station, more than a year ago, but this time they have proposed a spur line to Tsing Yi to make the terminus more accessible.

'Kam Sheung Road will become an interchange station for West Rail, the Airport Express and the high-speed link,' Lai said.

Lai said money could be saved not only because the new alignment was just a third the length of the original, but also because it would remove the need for the massive excavation planned for the underground West Kowloon terminus - 15 times the size of an average MTR station.