Transactions on the Built Environment vol 33, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 The high density vertical city: a trade-off between transit efficiency and living space provision A.H.S. Cook Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China Email: [email protected] Abstract The reasons for the car's success are well known. Personalised transport provides comfort, convenience and flexibility. Can the success of the car in providing accessibility and mobility be challenged by mass transit? Hong Kong is often held up as a model of a modern international city that has developed a successful and efficient transit-based transport system, a city where the car is not the prime people mover. What is the Hong Kong model? How does Hong Kong's ultra high density urban structure compare with other Asian and with European cities? This paper addresses the above questions in examining the interaction of transport and land-use in Hong Kong. The main theme is that there is a very strong interdependence between high urban density and efficient mass transit and that Hong Kong's transport system serves business efficiency but at the expense of personal space and quality of life. 1 A Challenge to the Car's Success Freedom, convenience, flexibility, mobility, privacy, personal safety, and pleasure are attributes of the car's success according to a recent study of transport usage in Europe (Gerondeau [1]). In Hong Kong several factors operate to keep car ownership at low levels and the use of public transport Transactions on the Built Environment vol 33, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 600 Urban Transport and the Environment for the 21st Century at high levels. Space is at a premium and property values are high. Despite the comparatively low vehicle ownership, there are 100 vehicles for every lane kilometre of road space. Parking space is also limited, which translates into high parking costs. In the built up area the cost of garaging a car. invariably at different locations day and night, is beyond the reach of the average person. Government policy is aimed at dampening demand for private vehicles through high sales tax and high first registration fees. Electronic road pricing is again currently being investigated. On the other hand, the high density living and business environment permits high frequency, economically viable public transport services providing a high level of accessibility, particularly to the central areas. High patronage, both day and night, also provides a 'safety in numbers' quality that encourages usage of public transport by a wide cross-section of the community. Even among car owners, only half use their car for the home/work trip. A secondary factor is that the small geographic area of Hong Kong, confined by a political boundary, offered little opportunity as the society became more affluent, for using the car for recreational purposes or for setting off on vacation. This may change in the future if the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen becomes more porous and driving to neighbouring provinces of China becomes easy for Hong Kong residents. However, the high property value, high density characteristics will still remain, as major constraints to large scale increase in car ownership. 2 Unique Land-use Transport Configuration The unique land-use transport configuration of Hong Kong has evolved because of the limited supply of land suitable for urban development. Key characteristics of the Hong Kong model are scarcity of space, high land values, high rise, extremely high density housing and employment, low private car ownership, and high public transport rider-ship with an increasing share going to rail. Urban development has evolved from a concentrated core of fairly mixed living and working areas confined to Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula up until the end of the 1960s, to dispersal of residential development to new towns in the 1970s and 1980s, only some of which had rail connection to the main urban areas. The main increase of employment space was in the central area, with very few jobs accompanying the population shift to the new towns. 'Self-containment' Transactions on the Built Environment vol 33, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 Urban Transport and the Environment for the 21st Century 601 which had been a goal of the British new towns, and adopted for Hong Kong's new towns, was not attained. In 1996 three quarters of Hong Kong Island residents who were in the workforce also worked here. At the beginning of the 1980s, in Kowloon, the picture had been very much the same, with three quarters of the workforce both living and working in Kowloon, but by 1996 this had fallen to 60 per cent. Today, the gap between workplace and living place is widening as more business space is created in the central area and more people are housed in the New Territories. The concentration of employment in the central area is continuing to intensify through production of more employment space on land reclaimed from Victoria Harbour. Hong Kong is still faced with the perennial problem of providing sufficient affordable housing for its population and housing has recently once again become a critical issue. The Territorial Development Strategy [2] indicates that future large scale residential development will be in the north west New Territories, with rail providing commuter services to the metropolitan area. Planning for West Rail to link the existing new towns of Tuen Mun. Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai in the western New Territories to the "Metro" area is well advanced. 3 Transit: the Prime People-mover 3.1 Public transport response to commuting demand Growth m the usage of public transport has increased dramatically over the past twenty years. Whereas in 1975 there were 450 person trips per year on public transport, by 1995 this had increased to 630 trips. It is not the urbanisation factor per se which has influenced this substantial shift, but the new towns programme of decentralisation of population - a shift not paralleled by employment. A marked widening in the spatial gap between home and work occurred. The New Territories experienced a major transformation, growing from less than 20 per cent to almost half Hong Kong's population in the past 25 years. Public transport has responded to the commuting demand. Major increases have been on the rail system. Ten years ago buses accounted for two thirds of all public transport trips, in 1996 their share had fallen to around half. Transactions on the Built Environment vol 33, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 602 Urban Transport and the Environment for the 21st Century Public Transport Public Transport Journeys, 1975 Journeys, 1995 17% 52% 65% 31% g Bus • Railw ay # Tram • Ferry D Taxi Source: Hong Kong Transport Department Figure 1: Public Transport Usage by Mode. Hong Kong 3.2 Expansion of the rail system A number of new rail projects are either under construction or being planned: the Airport/Lantau line will open this year; work to extend the Mass Transit Rail (MTR) to the new town of Tseung Kwan O (now with a population of 150,000 and planned to expand to more than 450,000) has commenced; and approval has been given to construct West Rail, to serve the new towns of Tuen Mun, Tin Shui Wai and Yuen Long in the western and north western New Territories. On the more distant horizon, further metropolitan links to Hong Kong Island south; partial duplication of the Hong Kong Island line and extension westwards across the sea to Lantau Island; a new north-south line, including a fourth harbour crossing; and extension of West Rail to connect with the mainland Chinese rail system, will drastically change accessibility. These will open up new areas for high density urban development. A metropolitan and regional network will result, yet still with a strong emphasis on accessibility of the central Hong Kong business area. Such a system will result in a very major increase in the length of rail line, and number of stations, to population ratio. Until the construction of the Airport/Lantau line, the MTR was 43 kilometres long with 38 stations and the Kowloon Canton Railway (KCR) 34 kilometres with 13 stations. The Airport/Lantau line adds a further 34 kilometres and six stations. The Tseung Kwan O extension will add a further 6 kilometres and five Transactions on the Built Environment vol 33, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 Urban Transport and the Environment for the 21st Century 603 stations, and West Rail (being developed by the KCRC) 30.5 kilometres (Phase 1, with the possibility of extending to 51 kilometres in Phase 2) and 10 stations. All this additional infrastructure will increase accessibility and efficiency in movement of population, but the increase in trips is unlikely to be commensurate with the increase in infrastructure with the result that the overall economic efficiency of the rail provision is likely to be lower than the current situation. The population projection for Hong Kong at the completion of these projects is around eight million, an increase of 1.5 million on the current level. 3.3 The journey to work A high proportion of the territory's jobs are concentrated in the metropolitan area and while population has been dispersing to the New- Territories, jobs have continued to concentrate in the metropolitan area. In the past 10 years the population of the metropolitan area has decreased from comprising 80 per cent of the Hong Kong total to 65 per cent.