Coach services resume as traffic snarls ease off
Cross-boundary coach services between Hong Kong and Guangdong province gradually returned to normal on Monday after being severely disrupted by huge traffic jams, notably on the Guangshen Expressway, that began over the weekend at the start of the eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays on the Chinese mainland.
As the road traffic pressure eased, only slight congestion was reported on major expressways, such as the Humen Pearl River Bridge linking Guangzhou and Dongguan. A search on traffic navigation apps on Monday afternoon showed that a bus journey between Mong Kok in Kowloon and Foshan city would take less than five hours, compared with up to 16 hours as reported at the height of the traffic congestion in Guangdong on Sunday.
Huge traffic snarls began paralyzing key expressways connecting Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen on Saturday evening, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of cross-boundary bus services on Sunday.
Vehicle queues on highways stretched up to 25 kilometers during the peak congestion hours on Sunday, with coaches being stuck on the roads for more than 15 hours. A bus trip from Hong Kong to destinations in Guangdong would normally take less than five hours.
The tourism industry has warned commuters to prepare for serious traffic jams again when the long holiday break on the mainland ends on Oct 8.
Thousands of passengers were believed to have been affected by the weekend’s disruptions.
Legislator Yiu Si-wing,
The jams had started earlier than usual on Saturday night.” Yiu Si-wing, legislator
who represents the tourism sector in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, said the jams had started earlier than usual on Saturday night. Many buses were stuck on the expressways on their way back to Hong Kong, and the drivers suffered from fatigue after having been at the wheel for more than 20 hours.
Yiu said although there had been similar delays in the past few years as a result of serious traffic jams in Guangdong during the “Golden Week” holidays, it was the first time that crossboundary bus services had been scrapped.
He added that travel agencies have also suffered financially. “The ‘Golden Week’ could have been a time for them to earn more. But now, they have lost fixed income and would have to refund travelers due to the suspension of business,” he said.
The number of mainland tourists coming to Hong Kong has also surged. About 206,050 mainland travelers arrived in the SAR on Sunday — up 9 percent from last year.
Yiu believed that the pressure on highways could be eased and people would have more choices in their mode of travel with the scheduled completions of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge later this year and the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link next year.