Eastern Harbour Crossing
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The Eastern Harbour Crossing (Traditional Chinese: 東區海底隧道), abbreviated as "EHC" (東隧) is a tunnel in Hong Kong. It is a combined road and MTR rail link under Victoria Harbour between Quarry Bay in Hong Kong Island and Cha Kwo Ling in Kowloon.
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[edit] History
The Hong Kong Government negotiated with several consortia to adopt the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model in planning new tunnels in different parts of the city.
In 1986, the government gave New Hong Kong Tunnel the right to run the Tunnel on a 30-year franchise. The lease ends in August 2016. There are two components to the tunnel, a road part and a rail part:
- The road part of the tunnel is branded as Eastern Harbour Tunnel, although the government refers to the tunnel itself as Eastern Harbour Crossing. The legislation governing the tunnel is known as Eastern Harbour Crossing Ordinance.
- The rail part connects Quarry Bay and Yau Tong stations of the MTR Tseung Kwan O Line. The road part connects Island Eastern Corridor and Kwun Tong Bypass.
The powerful state-owned investment group CITIC Pacific is interested in both parts, controlling the road part (71% stake) and has half share in the rail part. CITIC also controls 50% of the Western Harbour Tunnel Company.
[edit] Traffic
According to the operator, in 2003, a total number of 26,018,772 vehicles used the Eastern Harbour Tunnel. The average daily throughput was 71,284.
There are many harbour-crossing bus routes that go via the Eastern Harbour Crossing. They are operated by Kowloon Motor Bus, New World First Bus and Citybus.
[edit] Controversies
In June 2005, CITIC decided to raise the toll for using Eastern Harbour Crossing from HK$15 to HK$25 for private vehicles and up to 67% for other classes of vehicles, under the fare adjustment mechanism derived from the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model[1].
The Government of Hong Kong claimed it was powerless to block the toll increase under the BOT model. This has aroused criticisms that the model was detrimental to the public interest, and dissatisfaction of the general public and shifted more traffic to the already congested Cross-Harbour Tunnel.
[edit] Detailed bus routes
- Kowloon Motor Bus/New World First Bus: 302, 601, 601P, 641, 680, 680P, 680X, 692, 692P, 802, 811
- Kowloon Motor Bus/Citybus: 307, 606, 606P, 619, 619P, 621, 671, 681, 681P, 690, 690P
- Kowloon Motor Bus: 373, 603, 603P, 603S
- Citybus: 698R
- New World First Bus: 680A, 682, 682P, 694
- Overnights: N601, N619, N680, N691
[edit] References
- ^ Ng, Dennis (May 04, 2005). Toll hike ignites call for government to take control. The Standard. Retrieved on October 27, 2006.
