Explainer | What can commuters expect from cross-harbour section of Hong Kong’s most expensive rail project when it opens on May 15?
- Travel times are expected to be shorter, with journeys between Tai Wai and Admiralty on East Rail line taking only 17 minutes without need to change lines
- Smart facilities in place to help passengers choose time-saving routes, pick train cars with more space
The Post examines what this long-awaited rail section has in store for commuters.
1. How will commuters benefit from the cross-harbour section of Sha Tin to Central link?
The section, also known as the cross-harbour extension of the East Rail line from Hung Hom station to Admiralty station, via the new Exhibition Centre stop at Wan Chai North, will see the rail line extending to 46km through 16 stations.
With the new extension, the East Rail line will become the fourth cross-harbour railway route which will directly connect the northeastern New Territories, central Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Commuters will be able to reach the commercial, convention, exhibition and financial hubs in the Wan Chai North and Admiralty areas without changing lines.
Admiralty station will become a mega interchange station of four railway lines – East Rail line, Tsuen Wan line, Island line and South Island line.
Travel times will be shorter. With a new signalling system, the nine-car trains on the extended East Rail line will run at 2.7-minute intervals during peak hours, with journeys between Tai Wai and Admiralty taking only 17 minutes without the need of an interchange, 11 minutes faster than using indirect routes.
A trip between Sheung Shui and Admiralty will take only 40 minutes, 15 minutes less than the previous routing, while a journey between Sha Tin and Causeway Bay will take 27 minutes compared with 36 minutes before.
Passengers can also enjoy interchange discounts of HK$2 per trip using Octopus cards at designated franchised bus routes – 1M, 25A, 780, 788 and 722 – at Exhibition Centre station.
2. What were the controversies surrounding the rail project?
The Sha Tin to Central rail link, which began construction in 2012, has been plagued by allegations of shoddy work and cover-ups at the Hung Hom station since mid-2018.
The MTR Corporation and its contractors had been under investigation on several occasions – including through a government-appointed commission of inquiry, a probe by an expert team of officials and an auditors’ review – for their handling of the project.
The rail giant and its main contractor were lambasted by the commission for “serious deficiencies” in their supervision of the costliest rail link in the city’s history while the government, as the project overseer, was also criticised for not detecting shortcomings quickly and taking firm action to ensure things were back on track.
The opening of the cross-harbour extension has been pushed back several times because of various issues, including shoddy work, rectification works at Hung Hom station and vandalism of the connecting East Rail line by anti-government protesters during the social unrest in 2019.
3. Will the new rail section create more congestion at stations?
With shorter nine-car trains in place of the 12-car ones on the expanded East Rail line, concerns have been raised about whether the cross-harbour section will be able to cope with overcrowding.
Sammy Wong Kwan-wai, the MTR Corp’s chief of operating and metro segment, assured commuters the expanded East Rail line would have sufficient capacity to cope with the rise in passenger demand, with measures being put in place to ease congestion.
“We will also dispatch empty trains during peak hours to ease congestion at platforms. We believe we can cope with the rise in passenger demand,” he said.
He said smart facilities called “Cross-Harbour Easy”, showing real-time train-waiting images for passengers to choose time-saving routes, would be placed on the concourse and interchange platform of Admiralty station.
A passenger information display system will be installed at every platform on the line and on the MTR mobile app to show the loading capacity of each train car, so commuters can choose those with more space.
4. Will passengers pay higher fares for the new section? What about the long-standing fare discrepancy problem?
No. Fares for the new Exhibition Centre station along the East Rail line will adopt the network’s current fare structure, with prices for existing trips unchanged. A trip between Hung Hom and Exhibition Centre will cost HK$10.1, the same as for other cross-harbour railways.
However, critics pointed out that the fare discrepancy problem still remained, with legislators blasting the MTR Corp over what they called “unfair fares”. There have been instances of higher fares for shorter trips given that rail lines adopt different fare structures.
For example, people going from Hung Hom to Hin Keng will be charged HK$3.4 more than those who travel one station further and get off at Tai Wai.
For the cross-harbour section of the East Rail line, a trip between Mong Kok East and HKU will cost HK$14.9, compared with only HK$12.5 travelling between Mong Kok via the Tsuen Wan line and HKU.
However, the railway operator’s CEO Jacob Kam Chak-pui said fare-setting was based on origin and destination and irrespective of the routes taken, adding he hoped to resolve the issue by gradually adjusting the fares in the future.
5. What are the special features of the cross-harbour section?
At the Admiralty station extension, there is a suspended sculpture designed by American artist Talley Fisher named “Mapping Our Way”, which utilises colours of the four commuter lines to represent the network’s interchanging features.
The walls of the newly built Exhibition Centre station feature artwork by local artist Leung Chi-wo. Titled “Water Memory”, it is composed of 1,200 photographs capturing the Victoria Harbour seascape at different moments.
