Sha Tin trunk road plan gets Legco green light

The Legislative Council’s Finance Committee on Friday approved a funding request for a controversial HK$6.8 billion plan to build a new trunk road in Sha Tin to relieve traffic in the area. Sixty-one lawmakers voted in favour of the plan and three voted against, with 12 abstentions after a four-hour meeting. The estimated cost of the “Trunk Road T4” project was lowered by around five percent from the original HK$7.1 billion after concerns were raised over its hefty price tag. The plan is to build a dual two-lane trunk road of around 2.3 kilometres and connect major roads on both sides of the Shing Mun River. Transport minister Lam Sai-hung told the Legco meeting that the trunk road is needed to cope with the growing population in New Territories East. “The population of New Territories East is expected to increase further. Trunk Road T4 is therefore important in the context of the overall transport infrastructure planning and also serves a regional function," he said. "And it is anticipated that the major roads network in New Territories East will gradually not be able to meet the transport and logistics needs in the short-to-medium term." However, a number of legislators, including Peter Koon from the Election Committee, questioned whether the plan is needed or is worth the money. “When we have monetary resources, of course it'd be okay. However, when the government budget is in the red, when we need to solve traffic congestion problems in peak hours, can we really solve the problem? If we need to resolve the bottleneck in Sha Tin and you're simply moving the bottleneck to elsewhere, other areas will still be affected,” he said. Lawmaker Connie Lam, who represents the New Territories South East, also had reservations about the plan. “This T4 road actually is a bit out of budget and it's not a suitable time to build. We have to strike a balance between how to control the expenditure of the government and the needs of the residents there,” she said. Officials said they’ve already scrapped a proposed elevated cycling track across Shing Mun River, and reduced the number of elevators at footbridges to minimise costs.