In response to press enquiries on the "Green Ribbon Hand-in-hand Surrounding Shing Mun River" action by residents of Park View Garden and Granville Garden against the construction of the Shing Mun River Channel Bridge, a spokesman for the Territory Development Department (TDD) reiterated today (June 27) that the Government needs to provide the Bridge and the associated road gyratory system in Heung Fan Liu Street and Mei Tin Road to cope with the growing traffic demand there.
"The public housing development at Area 4C and 38A in Heung Fan Liu, with a planned population of 17,500, is under construction and will start intake in early 2006," the spokesman said.
"The traffic will be aggravated further upon the completion of the private residential developments at Area 4B Heung Fan Liu and at Tao Fung Shan by 2010. Traffic from these developments will converge onto the same junction of Heung Fan Liu Street and Mei Tin Road," he said.
TDD has recently completed the review of the scheme and alternative options including those put forward by the residents.
The current option, which was approved under the Roads Ordinance, is technically the best option. The other options are not acceptable for various reasons such as on traffic ground, failure to match with the development programme of the public housing development, creating other technical and environmental problems or carrying a very expensive price tag.
"As the Government has concluded the review, we consider that we should go ahead with the construction of the Bridge now in order to meet the growing traffic demand after the population in-take at Heung Fan Liu in early 2006," said the spokesman, adding that the impact on the environment will be minimal.
He said discussions had been held with local residents on several occasions in the past few months. The residents were fully briefed about the results of review in a recent meeting on June 14. The department will soon report the review results to the LegCo case conference.
Ends/Sunday, June 27, 2004
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