KMB Bus staff give directions to arriving passengers from the cruise ship “Spectrum of the Sea” at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal on August 19. Photo: Edmond So
Opinion
Alice Wu
Alice Wu
Kai Tak’s transport woes a nightmare of government’s own making
Lack of planning is why the cruise terminal has just one road accessing it, the neighbourhood has no monorail and public transport is simply inadequate
With the Kai Tak Sports Park expected to bring in more crowds next year, the government has to get its act together or brace for disaster
Lawmakers heaped criticism on officials last week over failures in managing the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal. Starry Lee Wai-king – Hong Kong’s sole member in China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress – put the blame squarely on Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung.
Lee did not mince her words: “I think you have handled the entire cruise terminal and the facilities around it quite poorly since you took office.” At the Legislative Council panel meeting on economic development, she accused the government of failing to make good use of the taxpayer money invested in the Kai Tak development project, pointing to the lack of adequate transport for residents.
Others joined in the chorus. It seems the summer fiasco over chaotic transport arrangements at the cruise terminal is still fresh in many minds. The images of eager travellers stranded, unable to venture into the city, were bad news for Hong Kong. As a city consistently ranked at the top for the connectivity, efficiency, accessibility and affordability of its public transport system, it was an epic failure.
The moving of the city’s airport from Kai Tak 25 years ago also produced failures of comparable proportions. The highly touted new airport at Chek Lap Kok had a disastrous start. Planes were stranded on the runway for several hours due to a shortage of ground staff and malfunctioning facilities. Cargo was stranded on the tarmac for days. Air conditioning failed to work and there was no water in the toilets. Embarrassingly, the government had to reopen Kai Tak airport temporarily to handle cargo.
One would think that after such a humiliating lesson, we would learn to simply do better. Perhaps too much time has passed, but that’s no excuse.
And the Kai Tak cruise terminal fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. From lawmakers’ grilling of officials last week, it’s clear this is a lot more than just a taxi queue issue.
Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung (right) visits the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal on August 9, when a free shuttle bus service was launched amid a transport crunch. The service was, however, cancelled at the end of the month. Photo: Sam Tsang
The entire Kai Tak development project has been a nightmare of the government’s making. It has known about the area’s transport woes for years, and has everything to do with creating it. It is a textbook case of urban planning and administrative management gone wrong.
Granted, the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal is no Rome but why have just one road leading in and out? If we look at the entire Kai Tak development, originally billed as “a distinguished, vibrant, attractive and people-oriented community by the Victoria Harbour”, what we have now is anything but. For residents and workers in Kai Tak, the transport system is simply inadequate.
The development plan has hit more than a few snags and has been, as a result of court challenges over reclamation, scaled back. What we have also seen, in the way it has been passed from one administration to another, is the government’s scaled-back commitment and enthusiasm for it.
An impression of what the monorail could have looked like. Photo: Handout
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s administration shelved plans for a monorail that would have served Kai Tak and the surrounding areas of Kowloon Bay and Kwun Tong, deciding the area would rely, instead, on a “multi-modal” transport network. That “network” is pretty much non-existent. Congestion and the lack of transport options are hurting Kai Tak and surrounding neighbourhoods.
Lawmakers have rightly questioned the government on its plans for the unused land near the cruise terminal. The response from the Civil Engineering and Development Department was that those plans were “subject to property market conditions”, and that the “government will monitor the situation of the property market and the supply in the local area to help promote related development”.
In other words, there is no plan. It is just a “wait and see” kind of thing. If that is not the ultimate way to pass the buck, I don’t know what is.
A view of the Kai Tak Sports Park construction site on October 10. Photo: May Tse
The 28-hectare Kai Tak Sports Park is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. It includes a 50,000-seat stadium slated to bring in huge events and crowds, and is touted as “a place for people to visit, to have as part of their daily lives, as well as hosting the greatest sporting and recreational shows on earth”, according to the sports park designer. Clearly, time is running out for our officials to figure things out.
So, what is the plan? Yeung’s answer is that the government will have an action plan in the first half of 2024. That translates to: they haven’t figured it out yet. Brace for another disaster.
Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA
