On 20th December, 2003, West Rail Line opened and tens of thousands of people flocked to the trains in order to experience the speed of trains. West Rail is a suburban railway line that runs between Tuen Mun to reclamation area in Sham Shui Po, inner city of urban part of Hong Kong. The average speed is 60 km per hour and it just takes about half an hour to finish the whole journey.
Since 1986, many residents in Tuen Mun, a new town in west suburb in Hong Kong and pressure groups had begun to call the authorities to build a regional railway line to Tuen Mun. Due to the great increase of population in Tuen Mun and Yuen Long, about 7 km northeast from Tuen Mun, and inadequate jobs available within those two districts, many residents had to commute to urban areas and the traffic flow became larger. In addition, the soar of property prices from 1984 to 1997 forced many lower middle income families moving to the two towns. Thus the government of Hong Kong built some new highways and approved to build West Rail in December, 1996, operated by KCRC(merged with MTRC in 2007), in order to fulfil the huge commutation demand.
At that time, I lived in Tsuen Wan south, an urban area where West Rail passed through. I hoped that the railway can bring a way of access to rapid transportation, as the thought of many residents there. After the start of construction from 1998, there was a great change at the nearby. For example, some area of parks was demolished and fenced to give the way of construction. Many places were dug. Sand and dust rose over the sky and ground.
When the railway was at the final stage of opening preparation, KCRC announced the fare was at high level. We were very disappointed because our expectation on diverting traffic flow was almost ended.
On the first month of its opening, the daily patronage was about 100000 people and there was a gradual increase of passage flow due to the contribution of daily and monthly passes at a reduced price, and further fare decrease after merged with MTRC.
Meanwhile, there had been a great increase in population in Tuen Mun and Yuen Long in the past decades and social problems in those communities have become worse. For example, many families there involve marriages between Hong Kong and mainland China, and a lot of people, usually men have to work in Guangdong province, thus they cannot live together very often and a lot of domestic conflicts occur. Although those towns have been developed for more than thirty years, the jobs within those towns are scarce and the wages are at bare subsistence level. Many people still have to get their jobs in urban areas and their expenditure on transport are at high level, although they consumed shorter time on transportation due to rapid West Rail service.
There are two extensions of the West Rail Line , which one extend from Sham Shui Po to Tsim Sha Tsui, downtown of Hong Kong, and the other one extend from Kam Sheung Road, 4 km east from Yuen Long town, to Lok Ma Chau, border of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. I hope the two extensions will bring a larger amount of passengers and fully utilize our railway resources. We also hope the authorities can put forward building more industrial and commercial facilities in northwest suburb to help residents in those areas.
The original text was distributed on 6:19pm, 20 December, 2008.
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