Following is a question by the Hon Tony Tse and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Frank Chan Fan, in the Legislative Council today (June 19):
Question:
Some members of the tourism industry have relayed that, in recent years, with the Government developing the brownfield sites in the New Territories and gradually resuming, for long-term development, a number of temporary car park sites let by way of short-term tenancies, the number of parking spaces for tourist coaches has been reduced. Meanwhile, the rise in the number of visitors to Hong Kong year after year has resulted in a rise in the utilisation rate of tourist coaches, leading to a more acute shortage of parking spaces for tourist coaches as well as aggravating the problems of illegal parking of tourist coaches and traffic obstruction. In addition, some parking spaces for tourist coaches in hotels and industrial buildings are available for picking up/dropping off passengers or stopping and waiting only. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the number of parking spaces for tourist coaches in the territory in each of the past three years, with a breakdown by the locations of such parking spaces (i.e. private premises, hotel, industrial building, roadside, and other places) and the modes of parking/stopping (e.g. available for parking 24 hours a day, for picking up/dropping off passengers only, and for those tourist coaches with drivers on board stopping and waiting); and
(2) of the details and implementation timetable of the various measures to increase the number of parking spaces for tourist coaches?
Reply:
President,
The reply to the various parts of the Hon Tony Tse's question is as follows:
(1) The numbers of parking spaces and picking up/setting down spaces for tourist coaches in Hong Kong over the past three years are provided in the Annex.
(2) To cope with the parking demand of tourist coaches, the Government will continue to pursue actively the following measures to increase the supply of parking spaces:
(a) designating suitable on-street locations as night-time parking spaces: From 2016 to end April 2019, a total of 18 night-time parking spaces for tourist coaches were newly provided, whereas 25 such parking spaces are under planning, with five of them expected to be put into service by 2020;
(b) following the principle of "single site, multiple uses" to provide public car parking spaces in suitable "Government, Institution or Community" facilities, public open space projects and public housing developments: A total of about 20 works projects are under planning providing about 5 100 parking spaces, of which eight projects providing about 100 parking spaces for tourist coaches are anticipated to be put into service progressively in the next few years;
(c) increasing the number of parking spaces and picking up/setting down facilities for tourist coaches: In 2018-19, the Transport Department (TD) increased a total of 41 on-street parking spaces and 85 picking up/setting down facilities for tourist coaches in such areas as Tsim Sha Tsui, Southern District, Wan Chai, Eastern District, Jordan (near the Express Rail Link station), Tsing Yi and Sai Kung. In 2019-20, TD has planned to provide 137 additional parking spaces and 52 additional picking up/setting down facilities in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin, Kwun Tong, Wan Chai, Southern District, North Point, Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun, Tung Chung, etc.;
(d) specifying in the tenancy agreements of suitable short-term tenancy (STT) car parks a minimum number of parking spaces to be reserved for commercial vehicles such as tourist coaches and goods vehicles: Currently, 21 STT car parks are required to provide a total of about 900 coach parking spaces in accordance with the tenancy conditions under this arrangement; and
(e) continuing with the consultancy study to assess the parking demand of commercial vehicles (including tourist coaches) and formulating short, medium and long-term measures to address the anticipated demand: The study is scheduled to be completed in end 2019.
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