Finally, one of the World’s greatest harbours is to get a water taxi service.
Except that it isn’t.
According to plans submitted by the Transport Dept to LegCo this week, State-owned Chu Kong Shipping was awarded a contract last month to start the service next month. (Chu Kong has also just agreed to buy 60% of New World First Ferry for HK$233 million / US$30 million). Boats will seat 130 pax, chug three or four times a day between six stops – the full route will take almost two hours – and charge up to HK$136 / US$17 per adult.
So it’s a tourist attraction. (There will be on-board photographers and a trilingual audio guide too). Capacity will be equivalent to a double decker bus (but presumably less crowded) or half a deck of a Star Ferry (presumably less smelly). Frequency will be hopeless.
It should be very pleasant but don’t call it a taxi. And don’t stop there.
A taxi can be called up at short notice and takes a small number of people to where they want it to go. Passengers pay more for this privilege. 
HK had a culture of sampans which, with a bit of reorganisation and with specifications spruced up, could conceivably answer to an outstretched arm or Uber call almost like their terrestrial counterparts do. If there is a licensing issue, it is in the government’s gift to change the licensing. With commercial shipping having long been effectively banished from the harbour, a swarm of sampans would not be too troublesome.
Sydney can do it, after all.
Don’t call it a water bus either. These are cheap, run so frequently that no timetable is required and they go all over the place. Think of Bangkok’s river buses (with quite a lot of sprucing up) or HK’s own MTR (the view would be better). If they need a subsidy, so be it. Public transport is a public good. HK can afford it.
Both water taxis and water buses would allow the HK public going about its daily life, as well as tourists, to enjoy being out on the water on a regular basis.
Consider also the proposed routes for the so-called water taxi service.
Only cruise ship passengers or sports fans en route to the Kai Tak Sports Park will occasionally want to go out to the stranded White Whale that is the Overseas Passenger Terminal on the old runway – but when they do, there will be several thousand of them all wanting to go at the same time so capacity of any water taxi service would be overwhelmed (see our policy proposal three years ago at https://logiegroup.com/kai-tak-cruise-terminal-white-whale/).
Given that the water taxi service will appeal mainly to tourists, why not extend its routes to Ocean Park and HK Disney? To approach by sea would be memorable; both need all the help that they can get.
Chu Hong evidently know how to run ferries. With less than two months between award and delivery, they will presumably retrofit an existing boat or two (the Blue Peter principle). With those short distances and infrequent sailings, they won’t need many. At least it won’t have cost much.
A silver lining to Covid is that it has forced us to slow down and allowed us to smell the roses, as it were. Logie Group can give no undertaking that the Fragrant Harbour will ever live up to its name but introducing genuine water taxis and water buses would so improve life for Hongkongers and tourists alike. The Government’s water taxi scheme barely starts to realise that potential.
