Opening remarks by Project Manager / Major Works (Special Duties) of Highways Department at press briefing on preparation work of Government for commissioning of HZMB
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I will present in Cantonese and briefly recap in English.
In this slide, the red line shows the alignment of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB). As shown in the drawing, the new bridge will greatly shorten the distance between Hong Kong and the western part of the Pearl River Delta (PRD). That would greatly enhance the connectivity between Hong Kong and all these cities on the western part of PRD.
This slide shows the overall layout of the HZMB. The HZMB mainly consists of two parts. First is the main bridge which is 30km, consisting of about a 22.9km long viaduct and a 6.7km of tunnel. The other part are the ports and the link roads built by the three governments, which includes Hong Kong Port, Zhuhai and Macao Ports, the Zhuhai Link Road. On the Hong Kong side, it includes the Hong Kong Link Road and the Hong Kong Port.
As announced by the Secretary just now, we expect the Mainline of the Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link (Southern Connection) will be opened at the same time as the HZMB and the Hong Kong Port. The opening of this mainline would greatly alleviate the traffic impact of the road network on the Airport Island and also in Tung Chung.
This slide shows the main road connections from Hong Kong Port to Zhuhai and Macao and also to various districts within Hong Kong.
Just now the slide shows the overall facilities of the Hong Kong Port. Basically the port can be divided into two parts. On the western part, it is the passenger clearance building and the north and south public transport interchange, which are basically used to serve all passengers using public transport to use the port to arrive and depart from Hong Kong. On the eastern part, there would be boundary crossing facilities for the vehicles, including private vehicles and goods vehicles going in and out of Hong Kong.
Just now the slide shows different routing for different types of vehicles and going out of Hong Kong towards Zhuhai and Macao.
This shows the reverse direction when vehicles are coming from Zhuhai and Macao into Hong Kong. These are the traffic routing.
This is the vehicle clearance plaza on the Hong Kong Port. Together on the day of commissioning, we will have 52 kiosks: 30 for private cars (15 in-bound, 15 out-bound); we will have 10 kiosks for goods vehicles (again five in-bound, five out-bound); and there will be a total of 12 kiosks for cross-boundary shuttles and cross-boundary coaches. There will be a one-stop boundary crossing clearance for quarantine, immigration and customs. By using the one-stop clearance, it should greatly bring convenience to the drivers and the passengers by saving their travel and clearance time.
This is the outside appearance of the Passenger Clearance Building. The Passenger Clearance Building is the iconic building of the Hong Kong Port. Especially the roof adopts undulating wavy shape which is used to mean the surrounding ocean of the Port. In order to build the roof, it is a very difficult challenge for the construction team. The contractor has adopted a very innovative idea by using large precast units, 45 large pieces and 36 module pieces. All these large pieces of panels are precast and then transport to Hong Kong, and under stringent restriction of the airport height restrictions, all these panels are jacked up and horizontally moved to their positions. This type of construction not only speeds up the construction progress, and also enhances the quality and reduces the risk of working at height.
This is the Departure Hall of the Passenger Clearance Building. You will notice that all the columns are tree-type columns. We think this type of design will greatly increases the spaciousness of the Departure Hall.
This shows the drop off point and the departure point for passengers using the passenger building.
This shows the facilities provided within the Passenger Clearance Building, which include restaurants, convenience stores, beverage and food stores and ATMs. The Airport Authority Hong Kong will set up a check-in counter here and the Hong Kong Tourism Board will set up an information counter within the Building.
This shows the Hong Kong Link Road which basically connects the Hong Kong Port with the Main Bridge. The Hong Kong Link Road is 12km long comprising 1.6km of at-grade road, 1km Scenic Hill Tunnel and 9.4km viaducts built on land and on sea. Particularly, I want to mention the 1km Scenic Hill Tunnel since it was built under the Airport Railway and Airport Road. During the construction, we had to maintain the operation of all these infrastructure facilities. So, within the 1km of the construction, the contractor has adopted four different kinds of construction methods. This posed really a great challenge to the construction team.
This shows the 9.4km viaduct which basically ends at the boundary between Hong Kong and Guangdong, and further links up with the East Artificial Island of the Main Bridge.
This is the new website for the bridge project, which will be launched today. Further information would be available in the website.
Ends/Friday, October 19, 2018
Issued at HKT 22:53
Issued at HKT 22:53
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