Tagged: HZM Bridge
Here come the green minibuses
Lantau is about to get its first minibus service.
The Transport Department has called a tender for a green minibus service between the airport, the new bridge border crossing and Tung Chung North.
The circular route will be 22 kilometres long, with buses departing on average every 10 minutes apart. Fares will be capped at HK$11.30.
The service is expected to start when the Hong Kong-Macau bridge opens either late this year or in the first half of next year.
Cheung Honwah, chairman of the Hong Kong Public Minibus Bus Driver Association Association, said a number of owners were interested in the bidding for the contract, which also includes new routes in Tseung Kwan O, Tiu Keng Leng and Yuen Long, HK01 reported.
Cheung said he hoped the new service would be extended to include the Tung Chung MTR station.
In addition to the minibus service, the Transport Department is planning three new regular bus routes to carry passengers to the airport from Tung Chung, Sunny Bay and Disney, HK01 said.
Minibus route around airport and Tung Chung North
Two-way tolls for N. Lantau freeway from next month
Drivers will have to pay tolls both ways on the North Lantau freeway from August 20, the Transport Department has announced.
The change is to accommodate the opening of the Hong Kong-Macau Bridge, after which the Lantau freeway will no longer be the only road access to Lantau.
The Transport Department said in a statement Wednesday that a two-way toll collection arrangement will be implemented at the Lantau Link Main Toll Plaza and the Ma Wan Toll Plaza from midnight on August 20.
The total toll charge won’t change. Private vehicles heading toward Kowloon, who currently have to pay HK$30 at the Lantau Link tollbooth, will pay HK$15 each way.
Six years in, we don’t know when Macau bridge will open
C.Y. Leung’s visit to Zhuhai last week confirmed what has been apparent for months – the grand project to build a bridge across the Pearl River mouth is so far off schedule no-one can say when it will be finished.
At the start of the year the 50-km bridge was slated to come into service by the end of 2016 as originally planned.
In January the government took a request to LegCo for an extra $5.46 billion, and acknowledged it was waiting on a fresh analysis from the Highways Dept to give a revised timetable. Officials had no trouble in finding reasons for the spike in budget: the high number of construction projects, machinery costs, rising wages, the environmental assessment, the delay caused by the 2010 judicial review and the cost of the new immigration facilities.
In March the head of the Guangdong Development and Reform Commission, Li Chunhong, told the SCMP that construction, which began in December 2009, may not complete until after 2020:
The bridge was scheduled to be completed next year, but Li said even 2020 was a difficult target because of technical difficulties in laying sections of tubes on the seabed and joining them to make a tunnel.
Lantau Confidential 