Untitled - Civic Exchange

Chapter 8:
Sustainable Transport for Hong Kong
3. We further recommend that government take into account the impact of any proposed transport
link on property values along the route as part of the assessment of all new rail lines and roads.
• The associated adjustments to overall government income over the life of the project
should be incorporated into the decision-making process.
• Further, where roads or elevated rail lines take up or otherwise restrict the use of
potentially valuable land or coastline, the economic consequences (opportunity costs) of
such site losses should be an integral part of the assessment.
4. A thorough assessment should be made of at least two areas where a "hub and spoke" bus (and
public light bus) feeder service to rail stations would significantly reduce congestion and
environmental impacts, while still providing adequate transport service for the area.
• This study (or a separate study) should examine the question of the extent to which
wasteful competition between certain rail and long-haul bus routes exists, with the result
that one or both systems are significantly underutilized.
5. A number of the Transport Department's recent assessments were structured in such as way as
to largely pre-determine the findings, and should therefore be re-done in a more open and fair
manner (see Point 13 below). In particular, assessments should be re-done for electronic road
pricing (ERP), electric trolley buses, and park and ride facilities.
• The ERP study should consider the costs and benefits of potentially including all classes
of vehicles (except emergency vehicles) in a road pricing system.
• The electric trolley bus assessment should give due consideration to the local
environmental situation along likely routes. The Transport Department should begin to
work with, not against, Citybus Hong Kong Ltd. with regard to a pilot route for electric
trolley buses on Hong Kong Island.
• The feasibility of low-cost park and ride facilities should be assessed in conjunction with
increases in parking fees in congested areas.
6. As part of the re-assessments mentioned under Point 5, we recommend that a detailed
examination be made of the feasibility of using tethered electric transport systems (electric
trolley buses and modern trams) to provide a large share of local transport needs.
• Further, from a list of the most congested and polluted/noisy corridors in the older urban
areas of Hong Kong, a number of transport corridors should be selected for an in-depth
and site-specific assessment of the potential for replacing most or all of the diesel buses
with trolley buses or modern trams.
7. In general, government should re-examine the ways in which the environmental benefits of
cleaner road transport are incorporated into technology assessments, both for tethered electric
systems and for on-board fuel systems such as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), oxygenated
petrol, and bio-diesel. 288
• In particular, we recommend that the HKSAR government support and encourage the
timely introduction of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility in Guangdong and
subsequently promote CNG as a transport fuel and industrial fuel, in addition to its role as
an energy source for the electric power sector.
288 Government presumably did something along these lines with respect to the conversion of taxis and public light
buses from diesel to LPG. While the LPG switch has been useful, as an isolated measure it is clearly not sufficient
to reduce air pollution to acceptable levels at street level or substantially lower expose to excessive noise.
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