East Lantau housing plans must not forget vital first steps: putting transport links in place

Lun Yiu Tung’s letter, “Let Tuen Mun overload be golf flats warning” (March 27), is a reminder that good infrastructure is needed for new housing estates.

The Task Force on Land Supply explained to the Citizen’s Task Force in a meeting in April last year that the timescale for their work did not allow for full consideration of the necessary infrastructure to support the land which they would be proposing for housing. This was a subsequent task for government.

The government’s speed in accepting the recommendations of the Task Force suggests that they had not considered the necessary supporting infrastructure, particularly the transport infrastructure, before their acceptance of the recommendations.

They already had a traffic and transport assessment report, based on preliminary data, which had reported that the proposed highway infrastructure from the northwest New Territories (Tuen Mun) to Hong Kong Island (Kennedy Town) via the East Lantau Metropolis did not have sufficient capacity for the full proposed development.

It recommended considering increasing the highway capacity, noting that this was not possible for the Hong Kong Island connection, reducing the East Lantau Metropolis development, additional highway links to the existing developed areas, and high tolls to discourage traffic. The full report has still not been released for public viewing, citing “confidentiality”.

Michael Wong Wai-lun, the secretary for development, ignored the report’s recommendations in his press conference for the Lantau Tomorrow Vision on March 19, even suggesting an increase in development from that assumed in the preliminary assessment.

He gave no indication of the need for additional highway links or the need for high tolls, which would need to increase each year in line with inflation if they were to remain effective in discouraging traffic. In its place, he was recommending early engineering feasibility studies before essential input for these studies was available from the necessary transport and other studies.

Robust and secure transport infrastructure with sufficient capacity is vital for this new town with a population of 700,000 (more than Sha Tin), given its location in the middle of the sea, especially during severe weather as experienced in Hong Kong.

Have the lessons of the delays and huge cost overruns on the high-speed rail project resulting from undue haste to push ahead too early been forgotten already? The secretary for development would be well-advised to follow the past orderly procedures for project implementation and not omit the vital early steps.

Ronald Taylor, Pok Fu Lam