Logie Group has long argued that, instead of separating every day life in Hong Kong from its iconic harbour, HK should embrace it by expanding water – borne transport across the harbour and along its shoreline. A water taxi service therefore sounded promising. LegCo’s Finance Committee meets today to review the ongoing subsidies for this. Any review of expenditure carries the risk of stopping it. The committee should not just extend the subsidies; it should take decisive action to expand the whole concept and make marine transport much more integral to the experience that our harbour offers.
As TransitJam points out, early traffic numbers have been negligible, indeed the equivalent of less than one East Coast trainload in the six months to 31 Dec 2021. But what did we expect?
The current service is, in fact, not a taxi but an occasional ferry operating a handful of sailings over two routes at weekends. As such, it appeals only to tourists and, of course, we don’t have any of those. At least, get the name right. Then expand not just the timetable but also the route map.
However, all our concerns from two years ago remain.
Real taxis go from wherever you are to wherever you want to go to whenever you want. The economics of doing so may b e questionable but what is wrong with returning a swarm of kai to’s and sampans to an otherwise almost empty harbour?
Crucially, the govt needs to recognise that this is not another local monopoly to be exploited by a usual suspect; or a glorified real estate play. Infrastructure the World over often generates benefits not captured by the project proponent so, if a project is not viable on a stand alone basis, it can be acceptable for the government to make it so by contributing money / assets in kind / assumption of certain risks.
The numbers will be trivial compared to what has been spent recently on Covid. Think of these subsidies as tourism promotion, if you will. But give a chance to what could be a wonderful idea.
