Gigantic National Day traffic logjams highlight advantages of high-speed rail

During the past National Day holiday, my family and I had a three-day trip to Guangzhou. We chose trains as the means of transport to and from the capital city of Guangdong, which is about 140 kilometers away from Hong Kong. We passed the boundary check point at Lo Wu and took a bullet train at Shenzhen Railway Station. The journey ended at Guangzhou East Railway Station and took about an hour and 15 minutes. On our way back we took a high-speed train from Guangzhou South Railway Station to Futian Railway Station in Shenzhen, and spent just 40 minutes on the journey. After a short ride on the Shenzhen Metro we were back at the Hong Kong boundary in Lok Ma Chau. Despite the massive crowds of passengers during the Chinese mainland's Golden Week holidays, both trains went smoothly and arrived at the destinations on time.

After we arrived at Guangzhou, we learned from the news on Oct 1 that the expressway between Guangzhou and Shenzhen was brought to a complete standstill by a gigantic influx of vehicles out for the holiday. At one point the crawling stream of jammed vehicles extended as far as 30 km, and cars from Shenzhen took as long as 12 hours to reach Guangzhou, a journey that usually only takes about two hours. Traffic from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and other cities in the Pearl River Delta was also severely affected. More than 90 percent of cross-boundary buses bound for PRD cities, around 400 of them, had to be cancelled on Oct 1. And the rest of the buses, which could set off, were all caught up in the massive traffic jam.

Upon hearing the news of the monster traffic congestion, we felt very lucky to have decided to travel by bullet trains. Otherwise, we might have been stranded in the jam or even had to cancel the trip altogether. Without doubt, high-speed railway is the most efficient, comfortable and reliable way to travel through cities in the PRD. It is much faster than buses, cars, ferries and regular trains; its operation is hardly affected by bad weather, bar the most extreme situations; its ticket prices are reasonable and it does not suffer from traffic jams!

Therefore the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL) really means a lot to the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents who pass the boundary between the special administrative region and the mainland every day. It would provide not only another way of transport but a better way. If the XRL were already operational in Hong Kong, the passengers whose buses were canceled on Oct 1 would have hopped on the high-speed trains to resume their journey. Residents in the city have all the reasons to expect the opening of the rail link, scheduled in the third quarter of next year.

However, some politicians are fervently against the XRL for its co-location arrangement of boundary check point facilities, making groundless accusation that the co-location plan contravenes the Basic Law and impairs the SAR's high degree of autonomy. Their opposition threatens to further delay the scheduled opening of the rail link.

The co-location arrangement of boundary control is for the benefit, convenience and efficiency of passengers. The government's co-location plan is fully legal and constitutional. Hong Kong residents have longed for the XRL to launch, and most of them have voiced support for the co-location arrangement, manifested by several opinion polls by different agencies. The opposition politicians should hear the voice of the people and stop making trouble for personal political gain. Hope Hong Kong residents would be able to enjoy the high-speed rail services on the next National Day holiday!

(HK Edition 10/23/2017 page9)