Category: Transport
Prosecutions for closed road breaches up sharply
Prosecutions of drivers entering South Lantau without a permit have risen by nearly three-fifths in the last two years, according to Transport Dept figures.
Police prosecuted 1007 drivers last year, up from 823 in 2014 and 637 in 2013, the department said in answer to a question from Legco member Kwok Ka Ki.
South Lantau police chief David Bennett, a former traffic policeman who took on the post early last year, has said he would make road safety a priority.
Anonymous banners getting govt message out on Lantau development
A series of banners promoting the government’s ‘develop Lantau’ message have popped up all over South Lantau in the last three days. The unusual feature is that no one has put their name to them.
What’s also unusual is that, unlike the government grand plan that includes inflatable water toys, cable cars and artificial islands, these messages include practical ideas that could improve people’s lives, like better internet and a functioning sewage system.
That said, these promotions are on the same page with the government on conservation, with one banner asserting that environmental protection should not take precedence over development.
Photos and translations of ten of the banners below.
(UPDATE: One Pui O resident posted on a local Facebook page that she’d seen former Islands District Councillor Rainbow Wong hanging the banners. Wong was the preferred Rural Committee representative for a decade until the local powerbrokers threw their weight behind Randy Yu at last year’s election. )
‘Support Lantau Development: Cut ferry ticket prices’ – Mui Wo roundabout Continue reading
CEDD seeks $72m for Mui Wo parking
The government is seeking HK$72.3 million from Legco to provide more parking spaces in Mui Wo.
It is also considering using the grounds of the shuttered Mui Wo Heung Yee Kuk Secondary School as a short-term parking solution.
The upgrade would increase capacity of the car park from 70 to 188 spaces, the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) said in a paper to the Legco Public Works Committee. Continue reading
The boondoggle infinite loop
For once it was not just Lantau people fretting about our transport problems. This past weekend we had not one but two accidents which threw the spotlight on Lantau and our fragile connections to the world. Plus one excellent irony – of that more later.
The Sunday evening accident, where a returning Macau hydrofoil struck an object off the Sokos, was lucky not to involve any life-threatening injuries. Reportedly the object was a marine fender tyre. For anyone who has strolled the garbage-strewn Fan Lau beach nearby that’s no surprise.
As a sailing master told the SCMP, such accidents are probably unavoidable in Hong Kong’s less than pristine waters. It won’t get any better off Lantau’s coast when the Environment Dept starts shipping 12,000 tonnes of household waste in and out of Shek Kwu Chau daily, but hey, let’s not see that as a negative. Continue reading
A short history of Lantau roads
Lantau might have some of Hong Kong’s oldest settled communities, but it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that modern roads came to the island.
Historically Lantau people were seafarers and farmers who lived on or near the coast. Any contact between villages was by sampan or mountain path.
That was true long after the island came under British control.
In 1950 a colonial district officer, Austin Coates, advised that a road connecting the southern coastal villages Mui Wo, Pui O and Shek Pik was “urgently needed.” Continue reading
New police chief targets speedsters
The new Lantau South police chief, an ex-traffic cop, has made road safety one of his priorities. Among other things, he’s considering putting plainclothes police on NLB buses and cracking down on drivers without Lantau road permits. As reported, he’s not a fan of opening up South Lantau’s roads to more cars.
More details here at the LBA blog.
Govt advisers in Lantau boondoggles shock
Here’s a story that pretty much captures all that I’ve been posting in the past month.
Brave Chan, a New Territories politician, NPC member and appointee to the newly-created Lantau Development Advisory Committee, agrees that Lantau’s transport system needs fixing up.
But he’s not talking about the indifferent service from Lantau’s taxi and bus monopolies. No, he means we needs more infrastructure to cope with more tourists. Continue reading
More blue cabs? It can be done
The good news is the Islands District Council agrees that we need more blue taxis.
The bad news is that the council has had no luck in persuading the Transport Dept, despite multiple requests.
The good news is the Transport Dept says it’s keeping an “open mind” about issuing more plates.
The bad news is it has no timetable for doing so. Continue reading
The silence of the cabbies
A quick update on the transport story, which has become primarily a taxi story.
First, getting a response from the Lantau Taxi Alliance is like trying to hail a blue cab on a summer weekend. Can’t see it happening, but will keep trying.
I’ve also put in questions to several Islands District Council members, including the chairman of the transport committee. They should respond, but the evidence to date is they’re more sympathetic to cabbies than passengers.
I’ve also included a question about Lantau cabs responding only after they are offered an inducement (a resident has just posted on Facebook her unfortunate airport experience late last night). This is not only illegal but is also compelling evidence that supply is not meeting demand. It doesn’t take Einstein to draw a link between this profitable but difficult-to-explain practice and the silence of the taxi firm.
On the bus side of things, Mr Wong Wah, the general manager of New Lantao Bus, has promised to give the bus company side of the story.
Lantau’s transport problems
My task over the next week is to write a story for Life on Lantau about our congested and erratically available public transport services. On a cold weekday in December it took me an hour to board a bus to Tung Chung, and even literally had to squeeze aboard.
I’ve had a lot of helpful comments on a Facebook thread I started, and there’s also this Facebook page launched by a Mui Wo resident furious after the taxi company was unable to provide a single taxi for his wedding party of 20, even after a week of calling.
The biggest number of comments related to taxis, followed by buses, with just a few relating to the ferries. For that reason, I will concentrate on taxis and buses in the story. A number of people raised safety issues, which is a huge topic in itself and deserves dedicated treatment.
One theme the story will pursue is how a community deals with these problems. In this Oriental Daily story in October, the taxi company doesn’t seem to think there is a problem at all, claiming the congestion is only a problem in holiday periods. But while there is an online form to complain about individual taxi drivers, there is no channel that takes complaints about taxi services. The taxi service is broke; how do we fix it? Continue reading
Lantau Confidential 