News Stories:

Click-on these handy "jump links" to quickly access the news item
you're looking for.

1. Harbor groups question latest claims over bypass

2. Harbour group demands clarifications on bypass

1. Harbor groups question latest claims over bypass
Leslie Kwoh, The Standard 10 March 2006

Reclamation is essential to the construction of the Central-Wan Chai bypass, a government advisory body tasked to review the development project heard Thursday.

Options for the corridor proposed along the stretch between the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and Island East Corridor would require at least four hectares of reclamation, planning consultants told the Harbourfront Enhancement Committee's Wan Chai development review subgroup.

"Zero-reclamation for the trunk road is just not possible," Maunsell consultant Peter Cheek said. "Regardless of which option we are looking at there will need to be some amount of reclamation on both ends."

Most of the reclamation involved would be at the connecting points on the eastern and western ends of the bypass. Shallow "cut and cover" tunnels would be required to link the bypass trunk road to a proposed tunnel on the west and the Island Eastern Corridor on the east.

The consultants were commissioned in December to look at all possible options for the bypass, including flyover and tunnel, in accordance with the Court of Final Appeal's ruling in 2004 that any proposed reclamation has to meet an "overriding need" test. But the consultation findings were met with skepticism by some members of the group, who felt their endorsement of the bypass project last December was now being unfairly used to justify further reclamation.

"I cannot at this point accept that no reclamation is not feasible," said Society for Protection of the Harbour director Hardy Lok. "Please withdraw this paper until you can provide more details as to the exact reasons why."

Other members demanded to know whether the road, originally proposed to have eight lanes, could be made narrower, thus reducing the amount of reclamation.

"We want to see all the options placed in front of us, even those that may seem ridiculous," said architect and Wan Chai district councillor Steve Chan. "We want to know that all our options were looked at before they were discarded."

Consultants responded they would provide more detailed information this week that would outline the amount of reclamation involved for each option and road alignment specifics.

The meeting closed with members insisting they needed more time to consider the implications of the findings before they could endorse the report.

"This paper seems to be trying to sell the Central-Wan Chai bypass, but there shouldn't just be pros and cons on these few options," said Conservancy Association representative Alvin Kwok. "We should still be open to ideas from the public, even if they are presented at an advanced stage. We must consider the community's sentiments, and most people, like me, are unwilling to accept reclamation."

2. Harbour group demands clarifications on bypass
FELIX CHAN , SCMP 10 March 2006

A government-appointed body on harbourfront development has endorsed the Central-Wan Chai bypass in principle but demanded clarifications on alignments.

Members of a sub-committee of the Harbourfront Enhancement Committee were briefed yesterday on the technical details of the new road.

Paul Zimmerman, of the Business Environment Council, said afterwards he and other members backed the idea of a bypass to ease the worsening traffic congestion on Hong Kong Island north but wanted more clarification on proposals for the route's alignments.

"We believed that there was not sufficient information from the consultants for us to make a decision on any of these [options] as they have not sufficiently looked at the no-reclamation option," he said. "Hence, we decided to send the plans back and told the consultants that we would come back with questions so that we could discuss it ... in a month's time."

Mr Zimmerman said there were particular reservations about slip roads, alignments, and reclamation. The consultants reported that both the deep tunnel option and the inland option would not be feasible for the route's alignment.

For the former, they claimed it would require a greater area of reclamation along the North Point shoreline (14 hectares) than an alternative tunnel option (four hectares) as favoured by the government, and therefore appeared unnecessarily extensive.

The inland option was deemed not feasible as such alignments are obstructed by existing developments in Wan Chai North and will come into conflict with the proposed MTR North Island line, Sha Tin to Central link and other existing transport infrastructures.