******************************

Following is the speech by the Director of Highways, Mr K.S. Leung, at the Completion Ceremony of Hung Hom Bypass and Princess Margaret Road Link this (Monday) morning:

Mr Ng, Mr Lee, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here this morning to celebrate the completion of the Hung Hom Bypass and Princess Margaret Road Link project. I am particularly grateful to Mr Nicholas Ng, Secretary for Transport and Mr. S. S. Lee, Secretary for Works, who have kindly accepted our invitation to officiate at this completion ceremony.

We are also honoured to welcome Mr. C. F. Chow, Chairman of Yau Tsim Mong Provisional District Board, Mr. P. H. Tang, Chairman of Kowloon City Provisional District Board, Mr. F. S. Y. Bong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Maunsell Consultants Asia Limited as a representative from the Designer and the Engineer, together with representatives from the Contractor's Joint Venture partner companies, Mr. Yasuji Maeda, President of Maeda Corporation and Mr. K. C. Pang, Chairman of Chun Wo Group.

Since I attended the Completion Ceremony of Segment Erection in Hung Hom Interchange in November last year, new roads and bridges have been gradually completed and opened to the public. On 14 June 1999, the majority of the ground level roads in Hung Hom Bay reclamation were opened to the public and provided access to the developments in the reclamation area. On 13 July 1999, Hung Hom Bypass, a 1.3km dual two-lane carriageway was opened. This improved the traffic linkage between Tsim Sha Tsui East and Hung Hom, and the travelling time between the two districts has been reduced from 10 minutes to 2 minutes.

Tomorrow, the 1.2km Princess Margaret Road Link will be opened to the public. In conjunction with Hung Hom Bypass, the Princess Margaret Road Link will further improve the traffic among Tsim Sha Tsui East, Hung Hom, Yau Ma Tei and Princess Margaret Road by bypassing existing busy road junctions. We expect the travelling time between Princess Margaret Road and Tsim Sha Tsui East will be reduced from 20 minutes to 8 minutes, and between Princess Margaret Road and Hung Hom Bay from 15 minutes to 4 minutes. As the tunnel and district traffic will be separated, we believe it will also relieve the traffic condition around the Cross Harbour Tunnel area.

The elevated structures of Hung Hom Bypass and Princess Margaret Road Link, with a total length of 5km, straddle over busy roads, tunnel area, KCR railway and freight tracks and the sea fronting International Mail Centre. Bridge construction required overcoming the constraints of limited time and space in order to achieve least disruption to the existing road and railway traffic. The bridges have therefore been designed to consist of 1643 precast segments and to allow their erection by balanced cantilever construction method with launching girder or mobile crane. The arrangement does not require physical possession of the area below bridge decks. With carefully planned temporary traffic management schemes, the deck erection works have satisfactorily progressed and been completed within 20 months over existing roads and railway tracks.

I wish to congratulate the Maeda-Chun Wo Joint Venture for the work they have done to secure the completion of the project and in the determination they have shown in overcoming arising difficulties and delivering the bridge works to completion.

I am grateful for the support expressed by the Yau Tsim Mong Provisional District Board and Kowloon City Provisional District Board and the local communities, without which the project would not be so successfully implemented.

End/Monday, August 30, 1999

NNNN