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HONG KONG – After months of political debate and discord, passengers boarded a new Hong Kong train station on a high-speed train on Sunday morning, the official launch of a multi-billion-dollar transport network remains China.
Another project, the longest sea bridge in the world, is expected to open later this year. Like the train station, it is both an impressive engineering feat and a source of controversy. It will cover the mouth of the Pearl River, connecting Hong Kong with the mainland city of Zhuhai and the former Portuguese colony of Macao, the world's largest hub.
Hong Kong officials say the projects are essential for economic development and will speed up the movement of goods and people in the region, which the Chinese government wants to strengthen together. But many residents are worried that the Greater Bay Area, while China calls its vision of a narrower Pearl River delta region, will mean the unique identity of the city.
Large-scale construction projects, such as the highway linking Hong Kong to Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province in the 1990s, have helped to establish the region's status as a global manufacturing center. But analysts say the benefits of the latest projects are less clear, and some suspect that China's desire to strengthen its grip on Hong Kong has raised other concerns.
"I think it was obvious from the beginning that the most likely political considerations were at least as important as the economic reasons," said Willy Lam, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Both projects experienced delays, cost overruns and other complications. Ecologists fear that the bridge will precipitate the extinction of the endangered Chinese white dolphins. At least 10 workers were killed in accidents during its construction and 19 people face criminal charges in Hong Kong for simulated concrete quality tests, which raised questions about the integrity of the structure and required expensive reviews.
High-speed rail station, which cost $ 10.8 billion, was highly controversial in Hong Kong welcome Chinese officers who will apply the laws of the continent in a part of the terminal.
Hong Kong, which regained control of China in 1997, applies its own laws in a pattern called "one country, two systems," with stronger protections for individual rights than in mainland China. It maintains a border with Guangdong province, but allowing the mainland officers in the new station has somehow moved the southern border.
Politicians, lawyers and pro-democracy activists say this represents a further erosion of Hong Kong's unique position in China.
"These two projects represent the physical connection between Hong Kong and mainland China," said Victoria Hui, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. "Of course, the station in particular goes to the heart of Hong Kong with Chinese jurisdiction."
Such concerns were inflamed this month when the mainland controlled terminal section was handed over to the Chinese authorities during a brief night ceremony, without inviting local media. Carrie Lam, CEO of Hong Kong, denied any intention to keep the event secret.
Ms. Lam was also forced to explain why some mainland officers were working overnight, despite promises to return to Guangdong when the station was closed each evening and why the station had an undisclosed additional basement. to the public.
The new railway line has been scheduled to reduce travel time in Guangzhou to 48 minutes from more than two hours, although trains stopping between stations take longer. The line will also allow passengers from Hong Kong to connect to 38 long-haul destinations on China's national high-speed rail network, including Beijing and Shanghai.
But some potential passengers objected to the baggage limit of the service, as well as ticket prices that offer little or no discount on flights.
"I do not think there will be any benefits for me," said Ling Chiang, 28, a commercial photographer who travels to the mainland about once a month to work. He traveled to Guangzhou by train, but said he would probably stay on a plane flight to more distant continental destinations.
"Why waste time when the price is about the same?"
The Hong Kong government estimated in 2015 that more than 109,000 passengers would take the train every day, but this year it has lowered the forecast to 80,000. Yet Frank Chan, Hong Kong's secretary of transport and housing, has stated that he was convinced that the project would be profitable from the start.
Both projects represent some of the largest national infrastructure companies of the past decade. the The high-speed rail system, which began 10 years ago, is the largest in the world, with more than 15,000 miles of track. The county has also built hundreds of dazzling bridges that set records for length and height.
As with the mainland express trains, expectations for the 34-mile bridge and tunnel project linking Hong Kong to the west side of the Pearl River have been reduced. A forecast of 2008 provided for 172,000 daily passenger trips by 2030, but the government lowered that figure to 126,000 this year.
One reason is that the Shenzhen manufacturing center, which was cut from the original plan, built its own bridge about 20 miles to the north. The span will connect Zhongshan City and is expected to open in 2023.
"It's a competitor of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge," said Yang Chun, a professor of geography at the Hong Kong Baptist University. "Obviously, this will dilute the volume of transport because they are parallel."
The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge will be entirely located in Mainland China, which means that users will not have to go through Hong Kong and Macao border controls. They will not have to go from driving on the right side of the road, which is used on the mainland, to the left, the side used in the two former colonies.
The 14-mile main span of the bridge cost $ 7 billion, of which the Hong Kong government will pay about $ 1.3 billion. Hong Kong has spent an additional $ 13.7 billion to build link roads, tunnels and an artificial island for its border crossing facilities. The journey from Hong Kong to Macau is expected to take about 45 minutes, much less than the current four hours of overland driving, but not much less than an hour.
Other doubts about the bridge project were raised in April. The photos of an artificial island where a four-mile tunnel emerged on the Hong Kong side seemed to show that concrete tetrapods, structures designed to protect the island from erosion, had disappeared. The bridge administration stated that it was working as planned, but that some engineers were not convinced.
When typhoon Mangkut hit the area last week, some of the detractors of the Hong Kong Bridge expressed hope that the structure would be carried away. But while Hong Kong was cleaning, he was still standing, apparently safe and sound.
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