A feasibility study for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge project will be completed by the end of the year, Margaret Fong, acting permanent secretary for the environment, transport works, said June 25.

"We expect that by early 2005, there will be a clearer picture on the traffic demand arising from the bridge," Fong told the Legislative Council transport panel. Monday's China Daily reported.

Fong also said one of the key tasks of the study is to determine the configuration of the Hong Kong section of the bridge and its connection with North Lantau Highway.

China Highway Planning and Design Institute has been commissioned to conduct the study, which will focus on areas such as hydrology, the environment, landscape, traffic and financial viability.

The Advance Work Co-ordination Group, composed of governments of Guangdong Province and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, has set up a project office in Guangzhou to monitor the study.

The bridge, estimated to cost HK$15-18 billion, aims to boost the development of western Guangdong areas which are comparatively poor.

During yesterday's meeting, legislators from across the board and representatives of the Tuen Mun District Council invited to the meeting complained that the government was not attaching enough importance to traffic needs in northwestern New Territories.

They called for construction of the Easterly Link Road to divert traffic from the Shenzhen Western Corridor and Deep Bay Link to Route 3, or the Tuen Mun Road would be highly congested.

But Fong said the existing highway network could adequately cope with traffic demand arising from the Shenzhen-Western Corridor and Deep Bay Link until 2011.

Annie Choi, deputy secretary for the environment, transport & works, said the link road would be of little help in diverting the traffic as it would only make a trip faster by two to four minutes; and wondered if drivers would use the link road to go to Route 3 - a toll road.

The government hopes that the toll-road operator would lower the toll to attract more vehicles but Miriam Lau, of the Liberal Party, said the government should not ask a private company to lower the toll for it was the government's responsibility to ease the traffic problem.

Albert Ho, of the Democratic Party, said the government was possibly not building the link road because it wanted residents to use West Rail, which does not have enough passengers.

Source: China Daily