November 27, 2003

Preliminary Note on the Need for Central-Wanchai Bypass

By: Geoffrey Rogers and John Patient

Historical Perspective

Historically, governments throughout the world have built highways to cater for the anticipated increase in demand for movement of people and goods by road. The extent and rate at which they have done this depends by and large on two factors: (i) the space available; and (ii) the rate of growth in the economy. The latter generates both demand for road use and the revenues to pay for infrastructure.

In cities, the rate of growth of demand for private passenger travel by road is ameliorated by the presence of good public transport; and in general, the greater the population and employment density of the city, the greater the share of passenger travel by public transport. Hong Kong is no exception to this general rule and has a very high level of passenger travel by public transport. The provision of high quality public transport does not affect the demand for goods vehicle movements nor does it impact on the use of private vehicles by senior executives and for non-commuting work related travel.

As a general rule, the approach of most governments is to slowly build new infrastructure in response to demand, which fluctuates over time depending on the state of the economy. New highways are built and justified in terms of its economic benefits to road traffic (both goods and passengers) but may also have environmental benefits, especially road by-passes, when through traffic is removed from city streets.

Many road by-pass schemes of towns in the UK now come as a complete package of by-pass plus town centre improvements designed to “lock in” the benefits of the traffic reductions created by the by-pass. These improvement schemes typically include pedestrianisation measures, streets design, as well as other environmental improvements.

Some cities are now at the stage however where lack of space and concern for the environment is causing them to eschew new road projects in favour of pricing some of the traffic off the roads at peak times and in certain areas. London and Singapore are examples where this has been undertaken.

General car ownership in Hong Kong is constrained by the costs of owning and maintaining the vehicle as it is in all other countries. Car ownership increases when disposable incomes move ahead faster than the ownership costs. There is therefore an inherent restraint on car ownership but less restraint on car usage. Pricing schemes such as those used in London and Singapore would produce a more focussed restraint on car usage in terms of time of day and location without affecting car ownership.


Perceived Problems in Central and Wanchai

Our preliminary review of Central and Wanchai identifies the following traffic related problems, which persist throughout much of the working day:

• Pollution
• High degree of conflict between pedestrians and traffic
• Low traffic speeds
• Extensive one way routings to cater for peak hour traffic and banned turns
• High degree of conflict between servicing traffic and through traffic
• Inadequate footway widths
• Inadequate kerb lengths for loading and unloading due to waiting restrictions
• Poor road hierarchy definition

Also, we find that Connaught Road Central, Harcourt Road and Gloucester Road, which form the main east-west route and which are classified as urban trunk roads, are sub-standard for this purpose. Trunk roads are intended to carry longer distance traffic between the major urban centres and are primarily intended to carry vehicular traffic with minimal pedestrian activity. The spacing of road junctions should ideally be 1km or more. We find however that the route has frequent side-road junctions in the form of off-and-on slips and a number of under-passes and over-passes that have been constructed to maintain through traffic movements at junctions such as at Pedder Street and at Cotton Tree Drive. It also has many bus stops along its length.

The proliferation of side road accesses creates problems of weaving and merging traffic, which have been controlled to a limited extent by a large array of double white lines. The stopping-and-starting of buses along the way further exacerbates the problem.

Finally, we note that Gloucester Road is badly affected by traffic queuing to enter the Central Harbour Crossing Tunnel in that all other traffic movements are impeded by the queuing traffic.


Suggested Package of Measures to be associated with any road scheme for Central and Wanchai

The CWB should carry with it a package of measures designed to lock in the benefits of the by-pass arising from the reductions of traffic flow in these areas.

These measures could include for example:

• Downgrading of Gloucester Road, Harcourt Road and Connaught Road to distributor status.
• A review of the road hierarchy and local access routes to simplify and improve hinterland access particularly from Gloucester Road, Harcourt Road and Connaught Road.
• Traffic calming and pedestrianisation schemes to create pedestrian priority areas and force out inappropriate traffic.
• Transfer of bus routes and stops onto Gloucester Road, Harcourt Road and Connaught Road from less suitable routes where possible.
• Greater emphasis on the needs of local servicing traffic.
• Balancing of the Central and Western Harbour Crossing Tolls so that more traffic uses the Western Harbour Crossing once the bypass is in place.


Minimum Functional Requirements of the Bypass and Surface Roads

If the CWB is to be constructed then we find that the government scheme in itself (ignoring reclamation proposals) is probably a “do-minimum” scheme in that it provides for a junction at each end and one in the middle at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). It also provides the missing link in the trunk road network on the north shoreline of Hong Kong Island.

If a review is undertaken of the CWB and its junctions, we recommend a reconsideration of the connections between the by-pass and the hinterland particularly with regard to providing for all directions of traffic movement at the HKCEC and Causeway Bay junctions so as to maximise usage of the by-pass especially for west bound traffic from Wanchai and Causeway Bay areas. If this could be achieved than this would go a long way to making access to Western Harbour Crossing from these areas more straightforward and would remove additional traffic from Central. In such reconsideration, the use of grade-separated roundabouts may produce a more compact solution than free flow slip roads.

There are other surface roads associated with the reclamation, which may be reduced in scale depending on the amount of new development associated with the reclamation. Known problems that these surface roads should resolve are the access to the International Finance Centre (IFC) area, which is a problem since it was designed on the basis that surface roads would be provided on the reclamation.

Surface roads on the reclamation should facilitate internal local connections between any new developments (if any) on the reclamation. However, the creation of yet another east-west route should be avoided by minimising the capacity of the roads and creating frequent signal controlled junctions.


Alternative Schemes Considered

The Hong Kong Government and consulting traffic engineers and planners have studied the existing problems in Central and Wanchai for many years. It would be fair to say that the existing situation is the culmination of years of fine-tuning with traffic engineering solutions and small-scale infrastructure improvements. We believe no further significant improvements can be made with this type of solution.

In order to provide significant improvements in the affected areas, traffic flow must be reduced below their current levels and then held there. This would then facilitate the introduction of the improvement schemes mentioned above.

The necessary flow reduction can only be achieved practically by “demand restraint” using some form of road pricing but ensuring that it is appropriate to Hong Kong.

One method would be to increase the tunnel tolls to an extent that traffic flows to and from Hong Kong Island are reduced sufficiently to achieve the desired flow reductions in Central and Wanchai. Any such scheme would only be successful if a substantial proportion of the harbour crossing traffic had an origin or destination either in or passing through Central and Wanchai.

A second option would be to introduce electronic road pricing (ERP) such that the cost of travelling on the roads in Central and Wanchai was set at sufficiently high a level to effect the necessary traffic flow reductions. This latter option has the benefit of being much more selective in the choice of target area.

Either option would require a major change in government policy from one of catering for demand by gradually increasing network capacity to one of restraining demand to suit network capacity. For both options there would be a continuing need to increase charges over time so that the deterrent effect is not eroded by inflation and general growth in disposable incomes.


Conclusions

Reductions in traffic flow in Central and Wanchai are required to improve the environment and for operational reasons sooner rather than later. It should be remembered that the current method of road planning carries its own set of “external costs” that have never been factored into the overall equation. Once the various other benefits could be showed to exist and be “locked in” by an associated package of measures, policy-makers might find it easier to persuade the public to accept a policy change to implement road pricing more effectively.

Posted by RealityMaster at November 27, 2003 06:39 PM