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Following is a question by the Hon Yiu Si-wing and a reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, in the Legislative Council today (January 9):
Question:
Some members of the tourism industry have indicated that as the Government resumed three coach parking sites within the Kai Tak Development area in September 2012, which involved nearly 1 000 large coach parking spaces and 2 000 medium coach parking spaces, the number of parking spaces for coaches in the urban areas has decreased substantially. As such, some drivers are forced to park their coaches in car parks in remote areas in the New Territories (NT), which has led to increased fuel expenditure. The parking and retrieval of coaches in NT by drivers are very time-consuming and also take up their rest time, and may even cause traffic accidents as coach drivers are tired. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of large coaches in Hong Kong, the respective numbers of large coach parking spaces for night-time, daily and monthly rental in the urban areas, and whether it knows the average rents of daily and monthly parking spaces and the average rent increases per year, in the past three years;
(b) of the expected rate of change in the number of coach parking spaces in the urban areas in the coming three years; if such number will decrease, of the remedial measures to be taken by the Government; whether the authorities have drawn up any long-term planning for coach parking spaces; if they have, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
(c) with the commissioning of the first berth of the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in the middle of this year, thousands of tourists will disembark there at the same time in future, whether the authorities will provide sufficient large coach parking spaces at the terminal; whether these are temporary parking spaces; if so, whether they will be converted into long-term parking spaces?
Reply:
President,
The Government monitors and regularly reviews the supply and demand of coach parking spaces in various districts of Hong Kong and will take appropriate measures when necessary to meet demand. Coach is a type of non-franchised bus and it can use all parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses. If there is relatively high demand for parking spaces in individual districts, we will implement the following basket of measures to increase the number of parking spaces:
* providing on-street parking spaces without compromising road safety and affecting other road users;
* allocating land not planned for immediate development for use as temporary car parks;
* if the demand for parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses is particularly high for a certain district (such as popular tourist spots), we will consider designating some existing temporary car parks for the exclusive use of non-franchised buses when renewing the tenancy of the car parks; and
* requiring an appropriate number of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses to be included in new developments where appropriate. For example, the Ocean Park has recently provided 100 parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses for coach parking in its extension works; space for 30 parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses has been reserved in the redevelopment project of the former North Point Estate to meet the long term demand of the district.
Due to the need to provide sufficient works areas for the Shatin to Central Link project, the tenancy of three temporary car parks in the Kai Tak Development Area (KTDA) had to be terminated in the period between September and November 2012, and the area of two other temporary car parks in the KTDA area had to be reduced. As a result, the number of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses in these five temporary car parks located east of the Olympic Avenue decreased by 475 from 680 to 205. In response, the Government reserved two sites, which are in close proximity to the existing temporary car parks, measuring 40 000 square metres as temporary car parks. Opened in October 2012, these two new car parks provide 342 parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses. The Transport Department (TD) estimates that the 547 parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses currently provided by the four temporary car parks in the KTDA, together with the spare parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses in the neighbouring areas of Kowloon City and Kowloon Bay could generally meet the parking demand of the affected coaches and other non-franchised buses.
My reply to the various parts of Hon Yiu Si-wing's question is as follows:
(a) In the past three years, the total number of non-franchised buses in Hong Kong (including coaches, school buses and residents' services buses etc.) remained at about 6 700.
Currently, the number of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses is about 5 300, including some 1 000 on-street parking spaces, some 1 600 parking spaces in various temporary car parks located in the Eastern District of the Hong Kong Island, Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin, Kwun Tong, Sai Kung and Kwai Tsing, and some 2 700 parking spaces at residential, commercial, school and other government sites. Although the number of non-franchised buses parking spaces is smaller than the number of non-franchised buses, some non-franchised buses would be parked at non-designated parking spaces in housing estates, schools and commercial buildings (such as hotels). If there is a clear shortage of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses in individual districts, the Government will increase the number of such parking spaces through the above-mentioned short term or long term measures to meet the demand as far as possible.
The total number of parking spaces designated for coaches in urban areas is about 2 900. TD does not have a breakdown of the number of parking spaces by rental pattern.
According to the TD's survey conducted in 2010 on charges for parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses in temporary car parks, in general, the hourly parking fee was about $5 to $20, daily parking fee (excluding night-time) about $20 to $100, night-time parking fee about $30 to $100, and monthly parking fee about $2,000 to $3,000. TD has not conducted similar surveys in the past two years and therefore does not have latest statistics on the increase of parking fee.
(b) The number of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses in the urban areas is affected by various factors. One of the more important factors is the termination of temporary car parks that provide parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses by the Lands Department for major infrastructure projects or permanent land development. We will continue to monitor the supply of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses in various districts of Hong Kong and, when necessary, will take appropriate measures to increase supply.
(c) The operator of the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal is responsible for the operation and management of the ground transportation area (including all driveways and parking spaces) within the Terminal. There are a total of 40 pick-up and drop-off spaces and 30 queuing spaces for use by coaches transporting passengers to and from the Terminal. Such spaces are permanent facilities within the Terminal. According to the assessment of the project consultant, assuming that each coach has a capacity of 45, the 40 pick-up and drop-off spaces would be able to handle 1 800 passengers simultaneously. When a cruise vessel berths at the Terminal, the cruise operator will typically make arrangements for its passengers to disembark in groups. Moreover, to ensure that cruise passengers will disembark in an orderly manner, the terminal operator will, together with the cruise operator and tour operator, work out in advance the necessary arrangements according to the passenger volume and berthing duration. Therefore, the project consultant was of the view that the number of such spaces should be adequate to meet the operational need of the largest cruise liners.
Ends/Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Issued at HKT 14:43
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