The New Express Train Link

Closed Thread
Page 3 of 11 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... LastLast
  1. #21

    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Discovery Bay
    Posts
    5,018
    Quote Originally Posted by bookblogger:
    It's not fine though, for many reasons. Lack of consultation is one. The vast cost is another. Is it a good idea to spend HK$67 billion on an infrastructure project which is designed to curry favour with Beijing, when people like nurses and teachers aren't paid enough?
    I do not trust the Government with this figure, and would not be surprised if the actual cost, plus overruns takes the figure past HKD 100 billion.

  2. #22

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Gold Coast Marina
    Posts
    17,934

    If you think that air travel is going to keep getting cheaper, try looking at some of the climate change proposals. It's not. It's one of THE MOST polluting ways to travel and it's going to get taxed. not this year. Not next year. But by the time this rail line is up and running...

    Not to mention the fact that it's pretty hard to run a plane on anything but oil derivatives and they are also just going to get more and more expensive in the future.


  3. #23

    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Sai Kung
    Posts
    4,151
    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    I struggle to see why people have got their knickers in such a knot over this. The consultations appear to have been ongoing since 2006 (so where does the 'they did it all in a hurry' come from?) - just because nobody took any notice, is that LEGCO's fault, or ours, for not paying attention?
    And it wasn't until 2009 that they actually admitted the line didn't actually go directly to GZ but 45 minutes outside it. The original selling point was the direct high-speed link to GZ!

    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    So 150 villagers will have to move. Sorry - but "so what"? They will get compensated and 150 families compared to 8 million HK'ers hardly seems unfair.
    Yes this time. Like last time. And the next time. This goes on far too often, whole communities split after a lifetime. Not great for them but what do we care. These people will get shoved in some high rise in Tin Shui Wai and forgotten about. Like those before and those in the future. So, "so what?".

    The whole thing is that alternatives, long thought out alternatives, have been put forward and have been brushed off with a "it's not viable". No further explanations, no nothing. Just a we know better attitude. That's what pisses people off.

  4. #24

    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    6,076
    Quote Originally Posted by shakermaker:
    I do not trust the Government with this figure, and would not be surprised if the actual cost, plus overruns takes the figure past HKD 100 billion.
    Yes, I think that is pretty much guaranteed.

  5. #25

    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Siu Sai Wan
    Posts
    1,660
    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    Sure, it's expensive. But you can say that about ANY infrastructure project.
    Well, I am sure you deal in millions and billions, so don't you question the actual costs of such a project? Even including kickbacks and corrupt payments, a power station in the Philippines seems cheap. It is not as though it is a groundbreaking, world first, engineering marvel - is a a high speed rail line in Hong Kong! Surely it can't be THAT difficult?

    Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.
    Extract: Excluding the associated infrastructure works, the 26km link will cost about HK$55 billion, or HK$2.1 billion (US$271 million), per km. Strip out the cost of the terminus, and the bill comes to about US$226 million per km. That is the most expensive of 15 high-speed links recently built or under construction around the world, including a 1,318km Beijing-Shanghai link that by 2012 will cut travel time between the two cities to four hours from 10.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Gold Coast Marina
    Posts
    17,934

    Most of the line appears to go underground - it's hardly surprising that given this it will be more expensive than other lines. However, if it did not go underground, no doubt a huge number more people would have been affected, so can we really be upset by this?

    In terms of my projects - yes I do deal in millions and billions and yes I do carefully question them. I have worked on numerous projects of this nature as the advisor (electricity, not rail), many of which have got the public upset (some of the vitriol created by the privatisation of the South Australian Electricity industry, of which I was a key advisor for years, was incredible). On the whole, the opposition (to my projects) was based in ill-thought-out and bad analysis, media frenzy and poltical opportunism, but I have no doubt that any of them would have put forward the same kind of arguments you are. That does not mean that I know this rail project does have good advisors who did a good job, but I don't know they didn't either. And the projects I was involved in came very close to failing (which would have been a disaster for a huge number of reasons) because of this kind of public frenzy cooked up by people with a very small number of the facts. For this reason, I'm naturally more skeptical that I used to be. What I see in HK is yes, Govn't panders to Beijing and panders to big business. There is plenty I would like to change and I certainly know the bits I know about power/electricity are questionable (and the consultants they used for the clean air consultation recently were close to completely incompetent).

    So I cannot determine without more information which this issue is, but I see no evidence that any of the protestors had any more info than I did either, but still protested. All very odd. Which makes me think, as others noted, that this was a fight to oppose Beijing for the sake of opposing Beijing, not really about the rail line.

    One final point about the villagers. Manila has no reticulated gas, dispite the fact that the whole population would be better off if gas was more available and dispite the fact that there is gas offshore. Why? Because land rights are SO entrenched that a short 100km pipeline is impossible to get through. That's not even knocking down homes or anything, that's just permission to stick a pipe through a field that the cows can graze over after it gets buried. THAT is where you end up at the other end of the scale - everyone is worse off.


  7. #27

    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    1,419
    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    So 150 villagers will have to move. Sorry - but "so what"? They will get compensated and 150 families compared to 8 million HK'ers hardly seems unfair.
    Spoken like someone who has the choice and the means to move anywhere in the world that they want, any time they want. As jaykay says, they will be 'compensated' with a 300sq ft box in a 30 story human warehouse in the NT...I wonder how you would take that treatment if they (our wise leaders) decided that GC Marina was the next reclamation project on the books....

    as for the second point, there will be a select few riding this golden chariot to GZ, as the ticket prices will be far beyond the means of most of the 7 million HKers...the bus and slow train will be the ride of choice for years into the future, ensuring that this link is not only the most expensive train ever built, but also likely one of the biggest money losers to boot.

  8. #28

    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    6,076

    We shouldn't forget that the government is also building this crazy bridge to Zhuhai and Macau, another hugely expensive (and environmentally damaging) project which will no doubt be a white elephant. The bridge to Shekou certainly is.

    What do these 3 projects all have in common, apart from being good for the six rich families who profit from everything? They are all designed to bind Hong Kong to the mainland, because we are told "we cannot survive" any more without China's largesse. Funny, we could before. The intention is political.


  9. #29

    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Siu Sai Wan
    Posts
    1,660
    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    One final point about the villagers. Manila has no reticulated gas, dispite the fact that the whole population would be better off if gas was more available and dispite the fact that there is gas offshore. Why? Because land rights are SO entrenched that a short 100km pipeline is impossible to get through. That's not even knocking down homes or anything, that's just permission to stick a pipe through a field that the cows can graze over after it gets buried. THAT is where you end up at the other end of the scale - everyone is worse off.
    I was involved with the Chevron gas project to bring gas from PNG down the Queensland coast almost 20 years ago. The land rights, cost and red-tape involved was astounding and almost impassable - I think it is still in the "planning" stage?. It was a major infrastructure project - I think the end-goal was to get gas to from PNG to Gladstone (for industry). But even then it was a US$6-8billion project that took gas over about 1200km. Looks cheap when compared with a few kilometres of rail in Hong Kong.

    Infrastructure of any sort is not cheap. I believe in spending money. But I hate to waste money.

  10. #30

    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Siu Sai Wan
    Posts
    1,660
    Quote Originally Posted by timklip:
    as for the second point, there will be a select few riding this golden chariot to GZ, as the ticket prices will be far beyond the means of most of the 7 million HKers...the bus and slow train will be the ride of choice for years into the future, ensuring that this link is not only the most expensive train ever built, but also likely one of the biggest money losers to boot.
    I think this is relevant. Didn't they cost the Airport Express on the basis that X-amount of passenger would ride it daily and they are not even meeting half of the target?

Closed Thread
Page 3 of 11 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... LastLast