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3.3.7 Thus traffic growth exceeded the growth in road space by a considerable marginWith the exception of the Cross-Harbour and Lion Rock tunnels and some specificareas, the road system was able to accommodate this growth for several reasonsnew roads are generally of higher traffic capacity than existing, traffic grew faster irthe New Territories where there was existing spare traffic capacity, and growth wasgreatest in goods vehicle traffic which is associated more with off-peak travel wherthere is also spare capacity. However, the situation is deteriorating quickly withcongestion spreading over the road network due to the rapid growth in trafficdemand.3.4 Tunnel and Vehicular Ferry Traffic3.4.1 There are four major tunnels in the Territory, each of four traffic lanes. The growth irtraffic of each tunnel is shown in Figure 3.16.3.16: IN12010080804020J_I_[—LJ-I , I -S- T 1- i -,[_!—I—L_[_-LJLJ74 7§ 78 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 88 87 883.4.2 By the mid-1980s, the two older tunnels, Cross-Harbour and Lion Rock, wereheavily utilised with peak hour traffic demand considerably above planned trafficcapacity. As a result, queues of traffic were backing up into the surrounding roacsystem and were a major cause of traffic congestion in the Territory. Increasing dashtraffic volumes were a result of increases in off-peak traffic augmented by peak-houtraffic spreading to adjacent hours.3.4.3 In order to curb the growth in tunnel traffic, a passage tax was imposed on theCross-Harbour tunnel in June 1984. Toll levels before and after the passage tax anshown in Table 3.6. The changes in traffic flows in the tunnel and on the vehiculaferries before and after the introduction of the tax are illustrated in Figures 3.11 anc3.18. Traffic demand in the tunnel was reduced by about 10% but growth resumecreaching the 1984 levels again by 1987. Most of this renewed growth was in goodivehicle traffic; the number of private cars and taxis were still below the pre-passag«tax levels at the end of 1988.45