West Kowloon Cultural District Stage 3 Public Engagement ...enews.westkowloon.hk/filemanager/common/pe3/pdf... · Kong Limited Mr. Andrew Cheng 3. AECOM Mr. Cheng Ping Cheung, Kelvin

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West Kowloon Cultural District

Stage 3 Public Engagement Exercise

One-day Conference for Urban Development, Information & Communications Technology and Green Groups

Break-out session - Transportation & Connectivity

Date: 22th October, 2011

Time: 1:30 pm – 2:45 pm Venue: Imperial Room II, The Royal Pacific Hotel and Towers

China Hong Kong City, 33 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

Attendance: 1. Mr. YC Ng (Head, Technical Services) West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA)

Development Plan Consultant

1. Mr. Chapman Lam (Mott MacDonald)

1. Mr. KY Leung (Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong) (Moderator)

Panel Member

2. Professor Bernard Lim (Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design)

1.

Participants MVA Ms. Chan Ka Lum, Lily

2. Harbour Business Forum/ Dragages Hong Kong Limited

Mr. Andrew Cheng

3. AECOM

Mr. Cheng Ping Cheung, Kelvin

4. Developing Full Potential Hong Kong and West Kowloon Concern Group/ Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Professor KP Cheung

5. Construction Industry Council/ Express Mr. Antonio Choi

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Rail Link - Terminus

6. AECOM Chung Kwok Keung 7. Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors,

RICS Hong Kong/ Colliers International Mr. David Faulkner

8. Mr. Roger Harrod 9. AECOM Mr. Ko Hing Ka, Kelvin 10. Harbour Business Forum/ Lee Yuet &

Associate Mr. Lee Yuet

11. Hyder Consulting Ltd. Mr. Leung Kwok Yiu 12. Hong Kong Institute of Engineers Mr. WK Lo 13. AECOM Mr. David Lui 14. Atkins China Ltd. Mr. Cameron MacDonald 15. Yau Lee Construction Co. Ltd. Mr. Wong Ko Yin 16. MTRCL Mr. Frank Yuen 17. Developing Full Potential Hong Kong and

West Kowloon Concern Group Mr. Thomas Yeung

Public Policy Research Institute Views Analysis and Reporting Consultant

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Professor Lee Ngok

1. Open Remarks:

Mr. KY Leung (Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong):

Okay, let's start. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this breakout session on

transportation and connectivity. I'm KY Leung. I'm the moderator of this breakout session,

which has a focus on transportation and connectivity. Maybe let me just briefly go through

what we're going to do in this one and a half hours or let's say one hour and 15 minutes. We

have three -- apart from myself, three people here. Mr. Chapman Lam, representative from

Mott MacDonald, who will actually give a presentation, and Professor Bernard Lim will

respond to Chapman Lam's presentation. We also have Mr. YC Ng, Head of Technical

Services of WKCDA. Without further ado, maybe I'll let Chapman do his presentation first.

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2. Presentation of the Proposed Development Plan

Mr. Chapman Lam (Mott MacDonald):

Thank you, KY. Good afternoon, I am Chapman. From MVA, we are part of the Mott

MacDonald team on the Development Plan of the West Kowloon Cultural District. So let

me do the presentation.

I was sort of guessing this morning how many, when we break out, how many will turn

up in the transport group and sort of guessed quite accurately. I think the majority is

interested in transportation, so we've got quite a good attendance.

So the objective. The objective of the West Kowloon Cultural District transportation

system is human. Is to create a people-dominated environment with a focus in public

transport. As I will explain later on, on every single mode of the transport system in the

cultural district, you will see the emphasis is really on people, walking being the predominant

mode. So you probably won't see this much in Hong Kong, but throughout this District,

walking is seamless. This is just a quick overview of the transport system and then I'll go

through each element later on.

We've got four railway stations in the vicinity. Of course, this one a bit further away

on Nathan Road. Austin station is on the eastern side to the north of the cultural district.

Right next to it, we've got the future Express Rail terminal and then the existing Kowloon

Station is also in close proximity. In terms of the road-based public transport, at the moment,

we've got the Kowloon Station Public Transport Interchange. We've got a lot of Cross

Harbour Tunnel buses on each side of the tunnel portal, and also of course we've got at this

location where we are sitting now, we've got some bus routes terminating in this ferry

terminal.

The terminal itself of course is well-known to serve Mainland ferries and also Macau

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ferries. On the ground level of the future cultural district it's going to be all people. No

traffic. Apart from of course, any building requirement on the EVA. All the roads are

underneath in the first level of the basement. Between the cultural district and the public

transport, the terminal and the Elements bus station, railroad station, there are a number of

connections identified. I will explain in a bit more detail later on, but there will be bridges,

subways and as well as a ground level deck, pedestrians’ deck in an unprecedented scale.

Again, I will explain later on how that came about. Connecting between the cultural district,

Kowloon Station and primarily the West Kowloon Terminus on ground level. Seamless

connection, the large pedestrian deck, connecting to the ground level pedestrian system. So

the streets in between the buildings on this ground level are all pedestrian.

This is just an illustration of how this system can link up all the green space, the open

space, on the West Kowloon Terminus, all the way along the West Kowloon Cultural District

and the Great Park that we all anticipate. As well there is the existing Kowloon Park, which

a footbridge will be connected to Kowloon Park and also consideration linking through the

Austin Station towards the King George V Memorial Park as well. So all this green you see,

no need to cross vehicular traffic. All connected seamlessly.

Now, let me explain a bit more firstly on the pedestrian system since we put so much

emphasis on pedestrians. Coming from, starting from -- maybe I'll start on the eastern side.

At the moment, there is the Austin station and then a pedestrian subway across Canton Road.

This subway system will be modified to tie in with the future subway connecting between

Austin Station and the Xiqu Centre. Xiqu Theatre, so this will be an integral subway

element that takes people from Austin Station as well as across from Canton Road.

It will come into the first basement of Xiqu Square and then when people get up, they

will then join the so-called ground level pedestrian walkway throughout the West Kowloon

Cultural District. So this would become one of the main gateways from the old -- I should

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say the older part of Kowloon to the east of Canton Road.

Another connection point would be through Kowloon Park. A footbridge is planned to

connect this corner of the cultural district to Kowloon Park. Either it's a new footbridge,

directly connecting across, or it may be in the form of a connection using the existing bridge

between this building and the Kowloon Park through the ferry terminal itself is being studied.

But one way or the other, there will be a connection to Kowloon Park on this end.

You will see, notice apart from these green -- blue arrows which I just explained the

subway system is also this red, which is an elevated deck between the Austin Station and the

Xiqu Centre. This is a supplement to the subway system, so in terms of the transportation,

we think the subway would be the predominant arrival point, while this deck would probably

be helpful for people coming to the Austin Station on the other direction. See, if you're

arriving, you're underground, so logically you will follow through the subway to the Xiqu

Centre. But if you're already here and going back to the Austin Station, I mean, then you

may -- some may use the pedestrian deck. So this is another complementary connection

across Austin Road.

Moving to the west, we've got this large pedestrian deck on ground level, so connection

is possible to the West Kowloon Terminus or the Kowloon Station on the other side. The

reason why we can do this, it's because of massive -- I mean future -- there is a big-scale

traffic improvement scheme that will take place in this location, and this improvement scheme

is one of the reasons why we can achieve such a good design. The scheme actually takes

away through traffic to underground. So we all know this area. At the moment, a lot of

traffic coming from the highway comes through West Kowloon to access the old Kowloon

part. So there are quite a lot of traffic today on ground level. But an improvement scheme,

a committed improvement scheme will be constructed at this junction, taking all this traffic

underground away from ground level. So we will be able to achieve a very nice pedestrian

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environment.

Further to the west, there will be a planned, we call it ICC bridge, which connects this

part of the cultural district, which is near the M+, to inside the ICC and then hence Elements

and then the Kowloon Station.

On the westernmost part of the cultural district, of course there is this 18,000-seat

capacity multipurpose venue which needs to be accessed. Of course, they can come around

the tunnel portal and then walk along this great deck area, but to access public transport more

easily to the footbridges provided. One is the existing bridge across the tunnel portal and

another one, which we feel would probably serve a better transport function, would be a new

bridge taking people directly -- this point is where exactly the Tung Chung Station concourse

is located. It will take people along this shoreline directly into the Kowloon Station and

Airport Express station itself. And from here, of course we haven't shown it, but -- because

this is sort of beyond the West Kowloon Cultural District area, but beyond this to the north

there are many footbridges and also subway connections in between the Kowloon Station,

West Kowloon terminus and also to Austin station as well. So this is an overview of the

pedestrian network.

Apart from the pedestrian activity, the walk, there is also we expect other leisure mode

within the cultural district as well. This may include a thing most people talk about

nowadays, quite a hot topic, cycling. We do anticipate some sort of leisure type of cycle

track segregated from the main pedestrian walkway. So in designing -- although there is no

traffic, there will be pedestrian corridors, whether east-west or north-south, but then the cycle

network would be a segregated system from the pedestrian because of safety issues. And

because of the scale -- I mean, it's about one something kilometres, 1.4 kilometres from this

lot to the end. From a cycling point of view, I mean, it's not the kind of length that people

can race, right, so the cycling network within this cultural district will be predominant leisure

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rather than very hardcore racing type of cycling. And apart from that, I think in the detailed

study, there will be local attractions for other types of activities as well, like skating, etc., on

the -- we've got a big park, so in the detailed design stage there can be designs that can

accommodate some of these activities in a very safe manner.

Traffic. As I mentioned, the ground level will be mostly pedestrian, with trees which

can provide shading, because a lot of the time Hong Kong is hot and people hesitate to walk a

longer distance because of the heat. But the fact that in between buildings we no longer now

have cars, so we have a lot of space that can create landscape. I'm sure colleagues in the

other room are now explaining how we're going to do the landscape. So we expect to have

many trees that, along the boulevard, along the avenue, so that they can protect people from

heat. And cars of course will be underneath. With this kind of system -- again, just going

back to people -- disabled group is a key design factor in the current concept plan and later on

the detailed design.

The way we perceive this is that on ground level, there will be -- although in the park,

etc., there will be a bit of levels. Could be some up, higher level, lower level. There will

be disabled ramps that ensure seamless movement of the disabled on the horizontal plane.

As I said, the traffic will be on the basement level 1, so it will be very important to take

people not only from the car park, but also along the drop-offs, and again, later on I will

explain the E-bus system that takes people on the east-west direction more easily on the

basement level 1. So in this level, we ought to have sufficient disabled lifts at important key

locations are, so if people are going to the M+, we don't want them to detour because they are

disabled. So at the location where they're being dropped off, there needs to be a disabled lift

that takes them back up.

Similarly in all of the footbridge locations and the transport interchanges, disabled

facilities will be provided and therefore I can say the disabled facilities are a key consideration

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in the design process. The way this works, it's not difficult to imagine. It will be -- this is

sort of like a big basement, and each building, each disabled access location will work like a

lift shaft. So imagine a big basement with the lift shaft at key locations that would take

people up to the pedestrian level. So these are the disabled facilities that will be designed

and refined in the later stage.

In terms of -- so much about pedestrians. In terms of vehicular, this yellow bit is the

underground basement one-row system that I have just talked about. In terms of its access,

there will be an access from Canton Road left in-left out and then there will be a ramp that

takes cars on to that central spine.

On the Austin Road, as I said, you can see this yellow bit. This is the underground

road that will be created and you'll see a big piece of white space here, which then becomes

pedestrian deck on ground level so people can walk across. But on ground level, the traffic,

there will be a huge turn around once the road submerges at the road portal, there will be a

sort of a U-shape that becomes what we now call the East Gate.

The East Gate will have a very long generous drop-off area. This may mean -- it won't

serve any through traffic, so it is for only access traffic to this part of the cultural district. On

the west side, consequently there is another West Gate. Again, when the road dives down,

there is going to be a “U” which serves only the access traffic, but no other through traffic.

So there will be the people being dropped off, cars, buses, mini buses, they can go access the

west part of this District through this West Gate.

Now, in between the East and West Gate, there is an access point, but it is not on grade

because this is a pedestrian deck. This access point will be on level, ground level 1, that ties

in with the road system and also ties in with the submerged section of Lin Cheung Road. So

at the underground, this Lin Cheung Road, Austin Road, forms a junction and that fourth leg

of the junction which comes in would become the access point on this internal road system of

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West Kowloon Cultural District.

Further to the west, at the location where the current Nga Cheung Road, you know,

when people -- the road that takes cars into the Elements car park, that's an -- at the grey road

section and then there's an overhead section of Nga Cheung Road. So at this location, there

will be two access points, one above ground, one underground, that provides car, vehicular

access on to this side of the basement road system, and together it will also provide access to

an open air road on, we call it Great Park Drive around the tunnel portal that gives access to

the multipurpose venue and the smaller scale exhibition centre.

And coming around back here, we also propose an elevated Austin Road bridge. If

you notice, at the moment the elevated bridge section of the road actually has another broken

leg on this side, so what we are proposing is to connect, build a bridge and then come across

and make this an access to the multi-performance venue. So this is the vehicular traffic

access and system.

When talking about the MTR access, we want to slightly mention how good the rail

access is on this side. Probably people may not realise yet. We've got Kowloon Station of

course, the Tung Chung line all the way from Lantau and then coming to Kowloon, and then

of course it doesn't stop. It goes all the way to Central and then from Central interchange to

the Island line. We've got of course, the future Express Rail Terminus all the way to China.

Austin station currently serving the West Rail and connect to Hung Hom. In future, when

the Shatin-Central link is completed, it becomes the east-west line. From this point on, it can

take the -- the railway goes all the way to Ma On Shan, and in the longer term, just about to

2020, about that time, the Cross Harbour section, when the Cross Harbour section of the SCL

is completed, there's another access interchange at Hung Hom that takes people to

Hong Kong.

Further inland, Nathan Road, we're all familiar with the Tsuen Wan line, although that's

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slightly away, but in fact you can interchange the Tsuen Wan line -- I mean the existing MTR

line through Austin station. So the railway network is really convenient in this cultural

district and the West Kowloon reclamation.

But we don't just stop there. Apart from the railway access, because we realise

although it will be a nice walking environment with trees, easier to walk, but still there can be

people that aren't willing to walk just a long distance. So we are proposing in the first stage

of the cultural district some electronic bus, environmentally friendly bus network.

Firstly, along this underground road there will be an internal route that takes people in

the east-west direction with strategic stops at key locations. It will run between the Canton

Road entrance and the MPV on the western end. So there will be a route travelling back and

forth in the east-west direction in the underground.

Secondly, apart from this purely internal route, there will be a second route, this green

route, that takes people just slightly beyond the fringe of the West Kowloon Cultural District.

It will be travelling along essentially the same east-west route, but not on the internal road, but

on the Austin Road itself. But then it will carry on further along Canton Road to a location

where the existing Star Ferry is. So this will be, just go slightly beyond Canton Road,

because Canton Road is a very busy retail-commercial district. Together with Star Ferry, we

want to try to capture these people and also try to provide a better east-west connection near

the railway station.

Thirdly, what you see in the red route is actually routes that goes even more beyond

the vicinity. It will serve the south Kowloon area. This will be again new electrical bus,

pollution-free kind of bus route that has West Kowloon logo going around the Kowloon area

that can take people, again, from the further commercial district of, say, Tsim Sha Tsui East

and Jordan area.

Apart from the electrical bus, of course we -- at the existing moment, we have already

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got a lot of bus routes that either terminates or running through the District. There are many

bus routes on the Western Harbour Crossing. There are many bus routes on Canton Road,

and there is the bus route that already terminated the three existing public transport

interchange.

So what we may do is we have an initial look and there can be a potential of 25 of

these routes terminating here. They can be slightly re-routed, making a stop at the West

Kowloon Cultural District either on the West Gate or the East Gate, that can utilise some of

these existing services to help service the West Kowloon Cultural District.

So this is the kind of road-based public transport for both commuting internally within

the cultural district, taking people further to the Tsim Sha Tsui area, and as well utilising those

existing services to give people a choice departing from the railway, the good railway network

that we already have. In the second stage of the cultural district, EFTS, an environmentally

friendly transport system, will be considered. This is more likely to be in the form of a tram.

Maybe not the kind of tram you'll see on Hong Kong Island today. There are a lot of other

tram systems in the world. The tram system is actually being further studied because of

course from a transport point of view it's good to have everything on day one, the best access.

I mean, but there are some practical issues to be considered, like financial viability, also

ridership, etc. So this system will be considered while doing Phase 1 of the electrical buses

are running inside the West Kowloon Cultural District. A reserve will be provided along this

alignment to enable very flexible implementation of any kind of system down the road.

This morning -- also there’s touch on water transport access. We haven't -- I mean,

assessing the transport demand and capacity of the bus system, rail system, etc., it wasn't

relied on water transport, but I think the intention is not to run any -- it's not to run any

franchise service, but mainly this would be -- and hopefully it shouldn't affect any harbour

reclamation ordinance. This will be some sort of floating facility that can cater for

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occasional -- if there is an event in the museum or the MPV, there can be a celebrity arrival on

boat, etc., or maybe later on commercially consider some water taxi on and off, those sorts of

things, and this will be further assessed. But this is more like a celebrity arrival rather

than -- a leisure arrival, rather than commuting ferry system.

Just slightly a bit more detail on the vehicular taxi drop-off. There will be very long

lay-bys, 100, 200 metres. I've got the numbers here, but I've have to look them through. A

very long lay-by system on the East Gate and West Gate, and as well on the underground road

network, we'll also provide drop-offs for all the individual facilities, because some of the

performing arts facility, the actual seating -- the entrance, some of them, because of the

special requirements, some of them actually have to be below ground, so the drop-offs, some

of those drop-offs are also along this underground road.

One level down would be the car park. This would be the core West Kowloon

Cultural District car park. The car park will be provided up to prevailing standard and also the

car park for the multipurpose venue.

You will notice that a bit of the car park here is not coloured and it's sort of linked

together with the West Kowloon Terminus. This is true, because there will be an overspill of

the terminal onto this part of the cultural district. So in this part of the basement, it will be

the car park for the West Kowloon terminus, and this bit is the parking for the Xiqu Centre.

So much for the facilities inside WKCD, and the following I'll just briefly explain the

traffic network outside the WKCD because obviously people may have a concern today. It

is kind of congested already. How can we accommodate the terminus, the cultural district

and all of the other development sites?

Now, actually there are many planned, committed roadway improvement

infrastructure. The Central Kowloon Route, this one takes traffic across the whole Kowloon.

The traffic will get into a tunnel in this location of West Kowloon and then it will sort of

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surface in Kai Tak area, and from there on, if the highways are to continue all the way to

Tseung Kwan O. So this is the Central Kowloon Route that can provide a big relief to the

east-west traffic movement in Kowloon.

And then there is this Lin Cheung Road, Austin Road underpass which I've just talked

about, which enables the large pedestrian deck across the cultural district. So this underpass

actually starts here and then comes down all the way around this junction. That takes all the

through traffic underground.

There are also these slip road improvements between Hoi Po Road, Nga Cheung Road

towards the West Kowloon highway. Now, the purpose of these are to facilitate better access

between the ground level road and also the West Kowloon highway, so the cars can get on

and off the highway easier, making traffic conditions better.

And also here there are slip roads planned to improve the access between the Kowloon

Station area and the West Harbour Tunnel as well. These are all sort of committed

infrastructure that will be in place around the completion -- before the completion of the West

Kowloon Cultural District, apart from of course the more complicated one, which will be

available -- should be available around 2020. By the end of the Phase 1 completion.

So what does all this mean? It means traffic coming from the New Territories and

Lantau, it can come down the highway either using Nga Cheung Road. It will have better

access to this Elements area, and then if you remember, there will be access points around this

red dot, this area, coming into the west side of the cultural district joining this yellow road,

and also through Lin Cheung Road as well. Of course, from Central Kowloon Route.

Traffic coming from the rest of the Kowloon area, Ferry Street, Central Kowloon route,

Jordan Road, Austin Road as well. Because of Central Kowloon Route this route, the road

will be a bit more relieved, so cars come in a little easier than what we experience today.

From Hong Kong Island of course we've got the West Tunnel or -- because the

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west -- the CKR connects all the way to the Eastern Crossing, the Harbour Crossing, so

coming from east Hong Kong will actually be easier. You just go come across and then join

the CKR and soon you are here. So that gives an overview of the transport system and I

hope I explained it clearly and we're here to answer more questions.

3. Discussion Session

Mr. KYLeung (Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong)

Thank you, Chapman, for giving a very comprehensive briefing on the transportation

arrangement for WKCD, which is very good except that we overrun, because Chapman, you

are supposed to give a 15-minute presentation and now you used 30 minutes. Anyway, so

without further delay, I would like to invite Professor Bernard Lim to give his response.

:

Professor Bernard Lim (Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design)

Thank you, Chairman. Some of the colleagues in this room know me as an architect,

and the suffix to an architect, always you've got the RA, meaning registered architect. But I

was talking to some of my friends, I have this suffix as another meaning as a registered artist.

Some -- I don't know many years ago, the Hong Kong ADC somehow was trying to get

election for members to the Hong Kong Art Development Council, so they get all these art

members together and those who are current members of the art group so become the -- since

then became an RA, registered artist.

:

But I'd like to share with you today, I guess the organiser asked me to speak also as the

president of the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design, an institute formed about two years.

Of course, it is a relatively young institute, but the issues of urban design, in particular related

to urbanism, build form, but also how in fact all these, the built and non-built spaces are

connected. So under this topic of connectivity, I'd like to share some of my views.

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I'd like to take a moment to say the Hong Kong IUD has got over 100 members now

and not only they are not only planners, not only, architects and landscape architects, but we

have quite a lot of members who are engineers by background, so we welcome to have more

dialogue and collaboration with transport planners, transport engineers and professionals.

Now, I'd like to share in a way my art group, in the last, well, few decades, every ten

years, when we travel to the Venice Biennale and also because that's every two years. But

every five years, there's also at Kassel, the Documenter. The documenter also is a very

important, well, cultural and art great event in the -- well, previously unknown little town of

Kassel in Germany, but because of Documenter, it got its great name in Europe after World

War II. Now, something I'd like to share from experiences from these two events and the

two cities of Kassel and Venice and related to the West Kowloon Cultural District.

Now, Chapman, my great friend, he has given an extremely good account from strategic

up to a lot of details related to transport and the issue of connectivity, so he's so

comprehensive that I have nothing really to add, so I just want to touch on the softer side of

these issues.

Now, about the relationship from the WKCDA to its surrounding. Now -- issue

which myself, my institute are very interested, is how people are connected inside and outside

of the District. So it's very good. I have seen this plan, these connections from walkways,

subways and so on. In Kassel, something that I really enjoyed very much is that when there

is these few months, of course once every five years they plan a lot for that. You walk in the

subway, you walk along the street. Suddenly you find in the subway there is a shop front

and then you look at the shop front, right? It's not only just a normal shop; the shop front in

fact has got displays of things which in fact related to the exhibit; whether it is the artist

exhibition or a souvenir shop or whatever, related to the Documenter. So the subway

becomes -- and the whole city, becomes part of the whole event.

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Now, I guess one thing the WKCDA could consider is these connection points,

whether it is the subway or the footbridges, are more than just for circulation purposes. It

gives, in fact an approach of people to the -- or the whole district, and in fact then one would

in fact find the particular atmosphere.

If you go to Paris, to the station, to the Louvre, of course you arrive at the station of

Louvre, you don't need to look for the sign because the whole station already gives you the

atmosphere: That is Louvre, right? And therefore I see that all these arrows which Mott,

MacDonald or MVA and the consultant have put in are great, and I hope they can be more

than just for the circulation; but in fact they become part of the whole, in fact, district of the

West Kowloon and bring people, when they step into the one end of the arrow, you already

can smell, you can already feel the atmosphere of the cultural district. And can there be

performance there? By all means. At Documenta you walk along the street, a zebra

crossing and then we find besides in fact the railing is already something fun, and then that

already gives people also a directional sense, whether it is a road sign, whether it is a railing,

whether it is a little -- well, bench. Well, you find the same thing at Roppongi in Tokyo, and

this is something which we can add flavour, add touches, and which we would be able to

provide a good atmosphere to the connectivity, the routes.

Now, so the sufficient connectivity from outside is very important. Now, recently I

guess most of you have seen the new government headquarters at Tamar. Now, the Tamar

the very, very few thousands of workers or visitors there to go to visit Tamar, the government

new headquarters of LegCo, you have a lot of people who will go through the Admiralty

MTR.

Now, a unfortunate thing is that that footbridge linkage to Tamar government office

can have no direct link into the shopping mall of the Admiralty, right? Now, I once had

dinner where -- I don’t name the people. Minister level lady, and then a head of the MTR

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sitting just opposite me and then they were -- that was about a month or two ago and they

were chatting about, "Oh, are you moving to your new office at Tamar" and then of course the

minister said, "It's okay, it's coming on, but the staff seems to be a little bit concerned about

not being able to walk directly from the MTR mall right into --" and then your walkway have

to go down, right, to the road.

Now, this is something I guess a lot of experts in this room would feel if we are the

professionals to design from scratch, of course it's easy. The difficulty in Hong Kong these

days -- well, of course the MTR head somehow said, "Oh, there, a lot of problems of shorter

title, a lot of difficulty and so on," as my warning, these arrows are very nice, so can the

arrows really reach into the West Kowloon shopping mall? Can it really have the linkage is

something which requires a lot of early planning these issues and so on, and I think that it's

very important that there will be sufficient width, sufficient connection to do that.

Now, I -- I will still have the Town Plan Board days with KY and at that time we were

looking at the Express Rail Station. I guess you may have already noticed now there is

already a footbridge linkage to the north of the Kowloon Station and linking to the West

Kowloon Terminus and to the Austin station. This footbridge linkage, I don't know, is five

metres wide or six metres wide. Now, the problem is it might be okay when you planned it

six or seven years ago. These days, if you go to Canton Road, if you go to there, you find all

these, a lot of great visitors who come to Hong Kong with their shopping wheeled trollies and

then of course all this beautiful stuff from Gucci, from Chanel and so on are put into, right,

their bag and then their trolley. So this five or six metres wide footbridge, definitely I'm sure

when the express rail is in operation, won't be good enough.

Now, if you -- and I go to Shenzhen so often. If you try to find your way and then

people with all this wheeled luggage and all their victory 戰利品 from Canton Road, it is not

sufficient. I'm sure in future, with our good Express Rail, some of our friends from

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Guangzhou, they will then take a morning ride to Hong Kong, now have their brunch and then

do their shopping and then go to the West Kowloon Cultural District. Of course, with all

their, of course, their luggage, handfuls. Well, one, I hope that all these arrows would be not

less than 10 metres or 12 metres wide so as to fulfil the needs of all this.

Now, I'll just very quickly go into the inside of the District. In fact, the main avenue

is a very good idea and I'd like very much this section and then -- now, one thing Chapman

raised very, very good is in fact for people to walk within the District. I feel that the main

avenue is a very good one. Now, in Hong Kong, now, I mentioned Venice. Venice is a

place where, despite the hot afternoon sun and so on, it is still very nice because, well, you

have all this, well, alleys where the buildings cast a shadow. You won't be in fact -- the

heated sun won't be affecting you that too much and therefore this PR sign and so on where

you can take a little coffee and so on. Now, for WKCDA, we learn from what is happening

in the South China area. I think the arcaded colonnade is very important and now to be

continuous and I hope that, well, between one city block to another city block, this arcaded

arrangement can be linking through all the way and then leading to a piazza so it will provide

all weather type connectivity. So KY and maybe someone like Julia, the current Town Plan

board members who will be approving the plan very soon, so please look at these issues which

in fact will be great benefit to all of us who will be using this space.

Now, a last point I want to say is in Venice, you know, you don't have cars to take.

You can only take -- either you walk or you take the river. The river you have got all these

little boats and so nice. You've got one boat and then another, stop, you go to another venue,

right? So now, I think here, despite what Chapman said and what in fact we know our great

friend Winston Chu has recently also given the view on the possible relaxation about whether

one has more amenities -- well, like a little pier and so on. Now, I guess some of us who

were older like my senior Mr. Lee Yuet in our younger days, they had these walawala in

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Hong Kong Victoria Harbour, I don't know whether you know about walawala. The

walawala provide you a very quick linkage between Hong Kong and Kowloon and sometimes

between -- now, I wish we could reconsider the incorporation of some walawala along the

water front promenade. I'm most worried about the MPV. Now, so in a way if there is

continuous walawala, if you have a ticket, a ticket for any performance or a museum and so

on, you can quickly step into the walawala and then bring you this way, this way, this way,

this way and then quickly link people. Now, some people like myself a bit older now, not so

strong to be able to walk that long or maybe the electronic-whatever, is too direct because I

get too sentimental, so that would be nice. So something added to Chapman's point, I hope

the Authority may consider further. Thank you, Chairman.


Thank you, Bernard. Being my senior in the Town Planning Board for sure your

comment we'll note that and make sure it's raised. Now, it's question time, Q and A time,

discussion time. Well, because of the overrun, I think we can only have about 20 minutes, so

let's make best use of the 20 minutes to -- I see -- Before you start, of course please mention

your name and your affiliation.

Mr. Lee Yuet (Retired architect):

Lee Yuet, retired architect. (laughter) First of all, I would like to apply to Bernard how to

be an urban design member? Can I be admitted if I do make the application?

Now, the second thing is Bernard, he mentioned about the water taxi, pier and all that. I

think Christine Lok and Winston Chu, they all have given the green light. That would

be -- you can apply, yeah. So I consider the water traffic for West Kowloon is very good.

So not to restrict it to celebrities only, and it should be open for the public. And then the

other thing is I wonder why, Chapman, you mentioned about West Kowloon Terminus, but

not express train or --

WKCDPE3-016-20111022

20


Oh, that's just a name of the express rail.


Because in actual fact, it is the Express Rail Terminal. So that's very good. I consider

the traffic arrangement, especially the Central spine is very good, so I hope, hopefully you'll

get the town planning approval, whatever, to get it done as soon as possible I consider it as

very good traffic arrangement.


Thank you.


Maybe the gentleman behind...

Mr. Roger Harrod:

I'm Roger Harrod. I work for a local contractor. A couple of observations, not aimed

at any particular person here. The al fresco lifestyle that is portrayed here for dining, wining,

drinking coffee, etc., many people know that here in Hong Kong, there are many, many

ordinances about how you use public open space and whether it's private open space or public

space, or however and this, where is the grass - should on the land, on the pavings, etc. Will

the whole of the WKCD area be zoned in such a way that facilitates flexible al fresco

life-styles? That is my first question.

My second question is you talked about using push bikes for leisure purposes. Great

idea, fantastic, but how do you get your push bike there? You’ve to put in the car or you’ve

got to put it on the train. Will the MTR let you have it on the train, you know put it on?

Probably not. Put it on a taxi? Can't. So you've got to have a way of getting your push

bike there because no one will cycle from Shatin just to have a 1K cycle around the track.

Thanks.

WKCDPE3-016-20111022

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Well, I think there are two issues -- there are two questions. The first one is actually a

planning issue, which of course it can be looked at by the WKCD Authority, which took that

into account when they put up the case to the Town Planning Board. So YC can take note of

that. And for the second one, I don't know whether Chapman --


If I can sort of -- this is for discussion, get some answers from a biker's point of view

rather than from a transport consultant point of view. Like if the biking facility is anticipated

to be for leisure, very much like Tai Po and those cycle tracks. Now if this is the case the

hardware is provided. There is a certain amount of retail space, so there will be commercial

incentive. People will come in to do bike rental shops. I mean, the Authority can consider

doing some bike hiring on the roadside, like Paris and Shanghai, right. But even if that's not

provided, there will be commercial incentive to come in, do some rental.

Mr. Roger Harrod:

Maybe think about electric bikes.


Maybe I can add a suggestion. You go to a lot of places, whether in Europe -- a lot of

cities in Europe or in the mainland. In fact, Hangzhou urban site is the best place for shared

biking, right, and so maybe the WKCD Authority can consider that as well in a way that you

have the shared bike or park say near the entrance and then you can use whatever means, say

may be use the Octopus card to maybe lease it or something like that and go anywhere you

like. WK.

Mr. WK Lo (Hong Kong Institution of Engineers):

Thank you. I’m WK Lo. Means Wei Kwok Lo, not West Kowloon Lo. You can call

me West Kowloon Lo if you like. I am one of the past presidents of the Hong Kong

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Institution of Engineers. This morning I raised a question to Colin whether monorailway is

an option, you know, for the future, people, traffic in the West Kowloon District. In fact, I

raised this in the previous public engagement forums, not just that the Hong Kong government

is now studying whether this is an option for the Kowloon East, connecting the Kowloon Bay

and Kwun Tong. But in fact if we look at the Asia Pacific region, I think there are two such

systems, very successful such systems in the neighbouring city. One is in Tokyo, where the

new Tokyo area -- I mean, the District meets near the Tokyo bay is connected through the

monorails to the older part of Tokyo, including the Simba Sea, the old commercial district,

and because the new Tokyo area there is a lot of commercial, residential and also big

exhibition site. I think the monorail in fact is a very important means now for connecting

people from the older part of Tokyo to that newer part of Tokyo.

The other one is in Sydney, where the Darling Harbour is now well connected to the

most busy shopping and commercial area of Sydney and the monorail even runs into buildings.

Okay, so I think that -- I think these two systems are important transportation means and also

a good attraction for tourists and therefore, in considering the EFTS, I definitely hope that,

you know, these will be part of the study. I'm not saying that this is the only solution, but if

you think, you know, if we have all the different means, I think that would be -- it would be

definitely a very good attraction for the tourists. And otherwise, the other thing, if people are

getting out from the Austin MTR station and trying to rush for a show in the MPV and have to

walk all the way through the green dot, you can imagine how tough that will be, because of

the distance, I don't think it is short between the distance between the Jordan MTR and the

Star Ferry station. So this is quite a long walk. Yeah, I like the yellow dot here. Here you

have the EFTS stops, but stop means can be a mix of tram, electric bus and monorail. Thank

you.


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Chapman, do we have any response to the idea of the monorail?


I think, as I said in the Phase 1, while they reserve, the EFTS reserve will surely be

provided to accommodate either the monorail or ground level tram, again, not -- it doesn't

have to be the same trams as we have today. It can be some modern trams that takes more

people that becomes a new attraction of Hong Kong. But during Phase 1, there will still be

some E-buses, pollution free buses running east-west to shuttle people east and west, so some

people will first start -- well, maybe not necessarily all people would come from Austin and

have to walk all the way to MPV. There would be people walking a short distance between

attractions, but for those who travel, have to commute a longer distance, there would be some

E-bus available and underground road to shuttle people east and west. And when either tram

or a monorail or any form of EFTS comes along, along that yellow line, there will be this new

attraction and also added convenience provided.


On this point, I would like to raise a technical issue. I don't know whether Mott,

MacDonald as the consultant has actually considered a rail-based transit or compare a

road-based transit at the proper time is always one more, I would say externalities or impact

on the environment. Actually two more: Noise and vibration. Will the noise and vibration

be of any impact to, or will it affect the performing venues which are of course are much more

sensitive than other places?


Well, I think I will have to leave this until later.

Professor Bernard Lim (Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design):

Chairman, may I just add a little part. In Kassel, they have this monorail which is

similar to that type of systems. In fact, they put a green carpet along the track and then all

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the plantation, and then artists put along between the track also a lot of very interesting

installations, and so that will add to the theme I was trying to promote to the WKCDA, so I

support the WK monorail.

Mr. Herman (Planner):

Herman, Planner, I want to ask about the phasing of the connectivity. Will all the

pedestrian networks be built on the day 1? If not, what are the phasing to ensure that the

connectivity and the commercial sustainability throughout the phasing that may last for

decades, and also the well integrated to the venues throughout that large site.


Chapman, do you have phasing?

Mr. YC Ng (Head, Technical Services, WKCDA)

Can I borrow your pointer. I think this morning, I think you've already heard about the

phasing of the venue. Of course the opening of the pedestrian walkway will more or less tie in

with the venue opening. So in Phase 1, with this corner, which we are talking about 2015,

2016, where the Xiqu Centre will be open and this part of the site will be open and connected

to the Austin station. But while the construction of the XRL, which is around this area, will be

completed around 2015, so that will handle back to WKCDA for the development and

continue up this part of the pedestrian connection.

:

On this side, this probably will be completed in about 2017. If you heard, the Lyric

Theatre and the Concert Hall, that will be 2017, 2020. The other part which will open earlier

is the park area, where we will build the current plan and which we will construct this bridge,

connect from Elements across from Kowloon Station to this western part, which will be open

earlier at 2015.

So you have to -- I think the progressive opening of this pedestrian walkway, either

due to some of the construction work right now carrying on on-site, but we will more or less

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25

tie in with the phasing development of the venue. So the west end and the east end will open

first and then it will connect up in the centre part.

Mr. Herman (Planner):

It would be very difficult to travel from east to west and --

Mr. YC Ng (Head, Technical Services, WKCDA):

Travelling from east to west, if you are talking about 2015 or early 2016, that -- these two

venues, I think the question being asked this morning is how to reconnect between these two

if tourists or people want to go from this side to the park. Then it will be an E-bus

connection rather than a pedestrian walk-through.


Okay. Any other questions?

Mr. Roger Harrod:

For five years -- sorry. So for five years, from 2015 to 2020, everyone getting there is

walking through a building site; is that right?


It depends on how you actually surrounding those Phase 2 development or construction

area. So right now we have a very good holding system around and --

Mr. Roger Harrod:

But it's still a building site though, isn't it? You can see the tower cranes and you can

see the scaffolding --


You would probably see some of those.


I would suggest, YC, to give the public a very broad brush time frame for this WKCD

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26

development. After that, so we could at least know by the time 2015 would be that, 2018

would be that and then 2020 would be that, whether you can meet that deadline or not. At

least the Hong Kong public would like to know a broad brush time frame for this whole

development, I suggest.

Mr. YC Ng (Head, Technical Services, WKCDA)

Thank you. I think this will be given. In fact, in the next implementation section,

which I think we will give -- this a breakout session talking about transport. Right after this

section, there will be an implementation session which will talk about the phasing of the

development.

:


We have time for one, maybe -- there are quite a few. But anyway, let's be quick. We

can limit it. But this will be the last three.

Mr. David Lui (AECOM)

Okay, my name is David Lui, AECOM, again. My question is really on the future

citizens, how they would enjoy the entire West Kowloon Cultural District. I've been to a

park recently. When I go in, signs, more than a dozen of prohibit, prohibitions: No skating,

no boarding, no biking, no dogs, all of those. On a lot of this, we are fighting for space and

if it is popular, it will be crowded. Okay, all this connectivity requires space, so in the future

use of space, can West Kowloon Cultural District let us know now what will be prohibited?

:


Okay. That we'll come back to. Maybe we can have all the questions or comments

first.

Mr. David Faulkner (Colliers International):

David Faulkner at Colliers International. One of the problems with performance venues

is that you have to move a lot of people at one time when the show finishes. You can stagger

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the performances at the smaller theatres to some extent, but with your MPV when the show's

over, you're going to have a problem. If anyone's been to the Asia World Expo to the

concert, you know it is a complete disaster trying to get 15,000 people down a narrow corridor

into one MTR station.

The way this is drawn up, it looks to me as though you're going to have the same

problem here. So I would echo Bernard's view that you've got to make sure these

footbridges and subways are very wide to accommodate these people. But I would have

thought we need to a have bit more activity around the MPV so that people might turn up a bit

earlier and have their dinner first or after the performance they might stay for a drink or two

so we don't all have to try and leave the venue at the same time.

Mr. KY Leung (Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong)

Good comments. How to space out the people when the performance ends. And I

think there is one more -- yeah.

:

Professor KP Cheung (Department of Architecture, HKU):

Yes, I'm KT Cheung, Department of Architecture at HKU. I'm very scientific at this

stage, at this moment. I want to know the population numbers for all the arrows that go into

and out of the site in a span of the starting day of WKCD to the next 20 or 30 years, because it

is very, very serious. Considering the number I get daily is 90,000 people using the high

speed rail station. That is a very high number, and expectedly, there maybe a similar number

of people who like to say good-bye and welcome people there, and there are also people

double of that number coming across the harbour to visit this wonderful site.

I have proposed a tunnel connecting Central Hong Kong Island to this WKCD site,

and I concur with DAB's proposal to buy back the Western Harbour Crossing Tunnel and

DAB already proposed it to the government to buy it back. So once we do this, all the

transport reconfiguration will be very different. And I really want to know the numbers

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because people do not work numbers well and I can calculate the number of hours each

person spent going there and from that site and the value of that, of their money value and the

time value is enormous. So please sort out this.


I think, Chapman, I don't know when Mott MacDonald started to design all this -- I

thought the travelling demand is the starting point for the transport planning.


Yes, exactly. Maybe I can explain a bit I think to the people concerned about the

performance venue, how people are being discharged.

Now, there are probably two ways to look at it. I think many people, when looking at

this performance venue, think it is very remote. It's located at the end. I mean, it is not

convenient. The other way to look at it is when this performance venue discharges, it doesn't

have to go through conflict with the retail, with the residential and with the other facilities.

So when designing the discharge of this multipurpose venue, what we have done is provide a

new bridge. This is a wide bridge. I think we recommended a clear width of 7 metres,

clear, which Dr. Lim just mentioned there needs to be some interesting feature that is not just

another boring highway footbridge, but also with the sort of character that symbolises that

you're arriving to a performance venue, you're arriving to a museum, you're arriving at Xiqu

Centre. But discounting all that, the clear width of 7 metres. There is a 6-metre existing

bridge. One might ask why, if we have an existing bridge, then we need another wide bridge

down here. The reason is that this existing bridge is kind of circuitous. It goes above the

tunnel portal, but then it has to go below the Nga Cheung flyover, so it sort of goes across,

comes down, get across, come up again. So it's kind of difficult. When you land in this

corner of Elements -- at the moment Elements doesn't have a very prominent ground floor

entrance to this location. It has to go through crossings. So although it is 6 metres and

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although it seems closer to get people across, but it is not actually the most functional in terms

of discharging people. So that's why we've been saying we need this footbridge at the same

time on the multipurpose venue is constructed, and I think we're working towards that goal.

Again, also the ICC bridge. This is another 6 metre wide bridge, again clear width,

excluding all the landscaping and the decoration and the sculpture, whatever. Together these

three bridges provide a half-hour capacity of getting people, can get away 12,000 people in

half an hour.

On the venue itself, there are, there is a public transport terminus. And if you recall,

even durng stage one before the available tram system, there will an E-bus that terminates, so

there will be E-buses waiting for people to get out and get in. So that's another probably

1,000 people to take them away after the performance. And then of course underneath there

is the car park. There is -- I forgot, 100 or 200 metres of drop-off spaces for taxis, for drivers

to pick people up. So in our calculation, we can probably, even before the available tram

system with the more aggressive frequency of the E-bus, you can almost take away like

80-90 per cent of the people within half an hour in the performance venue.

Of course, don't forget right next to it, we've got all the Cross Harbour Tunnel buses.

We might think of it in a way that if we take the Hong Kong Coliseum as an example, it is

also right next to the tunnel portal. It's also right next to a lot of bus services next to it. But

again the beauty of this being in the sort of western-most sort of, how to say, remote location,

is that it's got its enjoyment of all these pedestrian corridor bridges and also using a lot of the

capacity of the tunnel buses as well. So I don't know if I've --

Professor Bernard Lim (Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design):

So in response to KP and the gentleman's point, I really recommend to change all the

words anchorage bridge to anchorage decks and ICC bridge to ICC decks, so let's consider

that and make that as wide as possible. And respond to David's points, I share totally. On a

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recent occasion where the Harbourfront Commission together with Ms Carrie Lam at the

Kwun Tong promenade, I think you made a very good demonstration about walking on the

grassland. Well, the grassland in Hong Kong is, as you say, LCSD, you can't do this, you

can't do that and I hope that WKCDA and the new mentality walk on the grass, lie on the

grass and act and sing on all these places. That's my suggestion, too.


Thank you, Bernard. Well, maybe it is time for me to do a very quick sum up and wrap

up the whole discussion. Overall, as a transport professional, I will say that at a high level

perspective, the District itself has well planned internal connectivities, as well as because of

its very unique location, which is basically right next to a transport hub within Hong Kong,

with the tunnel portal, tunnel bus, rail terminals and also next to a number of railways is of

course, it can be more suitable to footbridges or decks and subways. It can also be well

connected to the adjacent areas, including all the major public transportation facilities in

Hong Kong.

With the E-bus, of course also it can be connected to adjacent areas. But thanks for a

lot of the comments. I have a feeling that it's always the case that the devil is in the details,

right. Whether the decks or the bridges are wide enough, particularly to channel the people

when the performance is finished, the peak -- whether the environment is good enough,

whether you have a lot of grasses and, you know, a green environment or stout footbridges,

whether the -- I would say the ferry service, whether it is pontoons or piers, that can actually

let more people other than the celebrity to access the place via ferry; these are the minor

details, and of course there is also a very important point about phasing of all these facilities,

given that the Phase 1 completes in, between 2015 to 2020. So with all of this construction

work going on, how to actually still maintain a good environment, particularly for pedestrians,

will be a great challenge and these are the issues that I think the authorities should actually

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take into account and bear in mind in the detailed implementation. Okay, if there are no

other burning issues, thanks for your participation. Then we go back to -- (Applause).

- End -

West Kowloon Cultural District Stage 3 Public Engagement ...enews.westkowloon.hk/filemanager/common/pe3/pdf... · Kong Limited Mr. Andrew Cheng 3. AECOM Mr. Cheng Ping Cheung, Kelvin

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