Ask Mr. Know-It-All: Why did the MTR take so long to head west of Sheung Wan?

Dear Mr. Know-It-All,
Why did it take the MTR so long to head west of Sheung Wan? Seems like a no-brainer to me. – Journey to the West

The idea to have the MTR run out to Kennedy Town is as old as the idea of the MTR itself. In the 1960s the government appointed British transportation firm Freeman, Fox, Wilbur Smith & Associates to investigate some kind of new transportation system for Hong Kong. In 1967 the firm completed the Mass Transportation Study, which included a proposal to construct a mass transit system based on the London Underground, and to include stops on the island running from Chai Wan right the way through to Kennedy Town.

As usually happens with these things, a drastically reduced version of the plan went ahead and the MTR opened for business in 1979 with the “Modified Initial System” which stretched from Chater (Central) to Kwun Tong. The Island Line itself didn’t open until 1985, and by that point Western wasn’t part of the plan. Without rapid transit links to the west, the city developed elsewhere.

It was so unthought of, in fact, that Sheung Wan Station is actually home to a couple of abandoned MTR platforms. They were originally intended to be part of Rumsey Station, the terminus of the proposed East Kowloon line. These “phantom platforms” stand still and until recently you could find yourself terrified and wandering through them at 12:30am, wondering what you were doing there. They have since been boarded up.

The MTR didn’t submit a new proposal for the West Island Line until May 2002, and it took years after that to get going. But come March 29, the West Island Line extension will be fully operational. Kennedy, Whitty and Sai Ying Pun stations will all be open, even if the names have changed—and the original dream of the Mass Transportation Study, all the way back in 1967, will finally have come true.

The 1967 Mass Transportation Survey: look familiar?