Officials said that travel time would be cut from half an hour to just five minutes with the new Central-Wan Chai Bypass
The Central-Wan Chai Bypass seen from Tin Hau. The long-awaited link between the Central and North Point districts will be open to public traffic on January 20 of next year. The HK$36 billion Central-Wan Chai Bypass is made up of a tunnel and flyover, and is expected to decrease the number of traffic jams on Hong Kong island. Authorities said it would cut travelling time from half an hour to just five minutes.
The opening would proceed in two stages, with the eastbound tunnel section to be in service first. With its launch, traffic lanes in the same direction along the Rumsey Street Flyover leading to Connaught Road Central will be closed.
This will be followed by the westbound carriageway, where work is still required to connect it with the Rumsey flyover, which is expected to take about a month.
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The Central-Wan Chai Bypass and Eastern Corridor Link project involves building a 4.5km pair of three-lane roads and a 3.7km tunnel connecting the Rumsey Street Flyover in Central with the Island Eastern Corridor at North Point near City Garden. It is expected to improve traffic conditions on often congested streets, Gloucester Road, Harcourt Road and Connaught Road Central.
The tunnel construction ran into seepage problems at one stage, but the Highways Department said the issue was “minor” and had been fix. It added that the tunnel had drainage features to address seepage, with a design aimed at limiting such risks.
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The tunnel is equipped with an air purification system – a first for Hong Kong – which can remove at least 80 per cent of harmful suspended particulates and nitrogen dioxide.
“This air system represents the largest of its kind in the world,” the department said in a statement. Work began in 2009 and the entire project was expected to open in 2017, but it was delayed by budget overruns and technical difficulties.
In 2013, the government requested another HK$8 billion on top of the initial HK$28 billion price tag, sparking anger from lawmakers.