Route Rage

The government calls it “Route 4,” the proposed road that—if given the green light—will stretch along the Kennedy Town waterfront right through to Aberdeen, ruining the sea view and turning that stretch of waterfront into another concrete mess. According to the Transport Department, the road will alleviate traffic congestion and allow for easier transportation of goods to the increasingly developed Western District. But with many in the district preferring a railway system instead, is there any point in destroying yet another coastal waterfront with a highway?

There is, but only because the government insists on developing the area, says Paul Zimmerman, one of the founders of Designing Hong Kong, an concern group on urban development. “For example, if more hotels are to be built, they’ll need food delivered and garbage removed on a daily basis. You can’t deliver those kinds of things on an MTR; you need trucks,” he says.

The Route 4 proposal was originally put forward over 20 years ago, back in 1987, when the government was planning massive reclamations around Hong Kong. However, the plan was only taken seriously in 2001 when a Legco study revealed that by 2016, Aberdeen Tunnel and Pok Fu Lam Road would face major traffic congestion. The plan for Route 4 was met with a healthy dose of community outcry, headed by Designing Hong Kong. “People were fighting very hard back then,” says Zimmerman. Activist Christine Loh went before Legco to propose rail lines as an alternative. “There was progress in the discussions, with the government pushing the road, and the community pushing the rail lines,” Zimmerman says. “The government eventually agreed to develop the rail and now we find that the road is still going to be built.”

One of the new MTR rail lines will extend the Island Line to Kennedy Town, while the other stretches from Sai Ying Pun past Aberdeen to Wong Chuk Hang and Ocean Park. All of the train line’s stations will be located along Route 4, making the road useful only to delivery trucks but completely redundant in terms of mass transportation.

The community organizers, however, were able to strike another small victory. “In response to community pressure against Route 4, the government developed two additional—and expensive—options,” says Central and Western District Councilor Tanya Chan. “The first option was a road through Mount Davis via Cyberport with only a partial destruction of the coastline. The second goes directly through the mountain to Aberdeen.”

The trouble is that neither of these proposals was met with much delight. “With any of the three options, Kennedy Town will be destroyed,” says Zimmerman. “In the end, they decided to keep to the original plan. We pointed out to the Town Planning Board that the Route 4 they’ve chosen is a route nobody wants, but the Transport Department has said that they want it, and the truth is, the community has no input.”