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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, at a media briefing on the public consultation on traffic distribution among the three road harbour crossings today (February 8):
Secretary for Transport and Housing: Today, the Government has released the consultation document on some proposed measures to improve the traffic distribution among the three road harbour crossings. I think members of the media would know that a couple of years ago, the Government has conducted a consultancy study. That study lasted from 2008 to 2010. Afterwards, we conducted a public consultation and we have listened to various stakeholders, including the Legislative Council's Panel on Transport, the Transport Advisory Committee, experts, academics and relevant District Councils.
During the process of the consultation on the consultancy study, there were views that whatever measures we are going to introduce should not affect public transport users, and there was also the concern as to the impact of any measure on goods vehicles. So, following the previous consultation, the Government has conducted further examination of various possible options to help rationalise the distribution of traffic flow among the road harbour crossings.
Now, we have finally come to three possible options. And, we are going to have another round of public consultation for three months starting from today until May 7.
The three options are Options A, B and C as named in the consultation document. Option A is what we call a Resource Management Option. In other words, the fare structure will be adjusted, so that those vehicles which make greater use of road space would be charged higher. Briefly, under this option, the fee charged on private cars will be decreased by $5 in the Eastern Harbour Crossing, and the fee for private cars will be increased by $5 for the Cross Harbour Tunnel. This option will help reduce the traffic congestion by 40 per cent for the Cross Harbour Tunnel so it will help achieve the purpose of our objective.
The second option, Option B, again involves reducing the toll charges for the Eastern Harbour Crossing, and also a corresponding increase in charges for the Cross Harbour Tunnel. But, of course, the adjustments to the toll charges will be in accordance with the existing fare structure.
The third one, which is a new option, Option C, is developed taking into account the views received during the last consultation. And the gist of this option is that public transport vehicles including buses, minibuses and taxis will not be affected. And, also, for goods vehicles, there will be less increase as far as the Cross Harbour Tunnel is concerned, compared to the previous two options. This Option C will go some way into addressing the concerns expressed last time. But, for this option, the toll charge on private cars for using the Cross Harbour Tunnel will be increased by $10, whereas the reduction for similar vehicles at the Eastern Harbour Crossing will be reduced by $5. So that, roughly, is the gist of the three options. The details are contained in the consultation document that you can find online at the website of the Transport and Housing Bureau.
We hope to spend three months listening further to the community. But, the important thing is that the toll charges at the Cross Harbour Tunnel have to be increased because the whole purpose of the exercise is to reduce congestion at the Cross Harbour Tunnel.
I will stop here and see whether there are questions from the media.
Reporter: Mr Cheung, do you actually have any preference thus far? Do you actually think Option A or Option C is more viable because they actually have a better effect compared to Option B?
Secretary for Transport and Housing: The three options, as far as the Government is concerned, can help to relieve congestion. Of course, for Options A and C, the outcome would be that non-cross harbour traffic will not be affected by any cross-harbour queues at the Cross Harbour Tunnel. For Option B, there will be slight impact. But, all three options will bring about economic benefits to the tune of $500 million per year. We are not indicating any particular Government preference for any of these three options at this stage. But, as I said earlier, the third option has been developed in order to address some of the concerns expressed during the last public consultation.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript of remarks.)
Ends/Friday, February 8, 2013
Issued at HKT 18:32
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