On track at last

Michael Shum

The East Rail Line cross-harbor extension will open on May 15 and change many lives.

It also means a fourth cross-harbor line going into service after repeated delays and cost overruns to deliver a construction bill of more than HK$91.4 billion.

The extension under Victoria Harbor will see the East Rail Line, soon to be 46 kilometers in length, using Admiralty as its terminal station instead of Hung Hom, arriving there via the new Exhibition Centre Station in Wan Chai North.

Highlighting local travel prospects yesterday, Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fan said people will be able to reach Hong Kong Island from the northeastern New Territories easily.

And the line extension under Victoria Harbor means the time needed to go from Hung Hom to Admiralty will be shortened to seven minutes from an original 19.

"Commuters will be able to interchange between four railway lines - East Rail Line, Tsuen Wan Line, Island Line and South Island Line - at Admiralty, making the station a super interchange," Chan said.

Jacob Kam Chak-pui, chief executive of the Mass Transit Railway Corp, noted the East Rail Line will soon take in 16 stations.

"The Exhibition Centre Station will be shouldering a very important role in promoting the development of commerce, conventions and exhibitions as well as tourism," Kam stressed.

MTRC transport services director Jeny Yeung Mei-chun said a trip from Hung Hom to Exhibition Centre Station will take only around five minutes, while a trip from Sheung Shui to Admiralty will now only take 40 minutes instead of 55.

The cross harbor extension will also offers a valuable alternate route for people going from Sha Tin to Causeway Bay. That journey will need only one change instead of the current four, and the travel time is reduced by seven minutes from 36 to 27.

Yeung noted too that fares of the East Rail Line to or from existing stations will remain unchanged, while a trip from Hung Hom Station to Exhibition Centre Station will cost HK$10.10, which equates with fares on other cross-harbor lines.

There will also be interchange discounts on five designated bus routes that take passengers to the Exhibition Centre Station, with a HK$2 interchange discount for a trip.

Sammy Wong Kwan-wai, the MTRC's chief of operating and the metro segment, said the East Rail Line will be using nine-carriage trains instead of 12-carriage ones starting from this Saturday.

And as that change kicks in corporation planners will be monitoring changes in people's travel patterns.

"The new trains and new signaling system on the East Rail Line will have enough capacity to meet passenger demand as the service intervals can be shortened from three minutes to 2.7 minutes during rush hours," Wong said.

He added there will also be different measures to cope with passenger surges on the line, including "silver bullet trains" that will pull into busy stations empty to pick up passengers.

Tiffany Lai, 20, who lives in Sai Wan near HKU Station, told The Standard that the cross-harbor extension will help her massively to get to Polytechnic University in Hung Hom.

"I can take the Island Line to Admiralty and change to the East Rail Line and get to Hung Hom, which will save me a lot of time," she said.

Miss Lo, in her early 50s, said the cross-harbor extension will be convenient as she can reach Hong Kong Island from her Tai Po home without having to change lines.

Apart from that, she can also opt to get home from her workplace in Tsim Sha Tsui by taking the Tsuen Wan Line to Admiralty and board an East Rail Line train back to Tai Po. "It will be quite a big deal for me to find a seat on a train after a tiring day at work," she remarked.

Yvonne Woo, 24, said she will also find the extension convenient as she needs to get to Chai Wan once every week from her Tai Wai home, though she is concerned about the prospects of crowded stations and trains on the East Rail Line.

"I can envision a station being crammed with people as we only get nine-carriage trains now," she said. "I might not even be able to get through the turnstiles once the border is reopened."

With the cross-harbor extension, New World First Bus and Citybus will cancel cross-harbor route 301, which takes passengers from Hung Hom to Central.

The bus operators also expect a 20 percent drop in patronage, though the frequency of its bus services going through the Cross Harbor Tunnel at Hung Hom will be adjusted as necessary.

michael.shum@singtaonewscorp.com