Lawmaker slams gov’t unpreparedness for Oriental Pearl congestion

As tourism activities have recommenced, traffic congestion is reappearing in many places, such as the Oriental Pearl roundabout, and consequently lawmaker Ron Lam has criticized the government for being unprepared.

In his latest written enquiry, the lawmaker pointed out several design flaws or points of confusion that have led to regular traffic congestion, especially at peak hours, on the aforementioned roundabout after tourists resumed their influx.

The first location he mentioned is the first junction traffic will see when entering the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge border district from the New Urban Zone A. The junction has traffic directions and instructions marked by lines and signage, but without concrete separations, in addition to merging several lanes together.

Lam emphasized that traffic at the junction was designed so that the opening with the busiest traffic is required to give way to other openings with less busy traffic.

Secondly, when traffic exiting Zone A to the main peninsula reaches the junction at the Oriental Pearl roundabout, it will meet a bottleneck that merges three lanes into two and suddenly expands to three lanes again. The bottleneck forces traffic to the main peninsula to obstruct the lane towards the Amizade Bridge, so that traffic to Taipa needs to wait with other vehicles.

Consequently, the lawmaker asked if the government would rectify the design flaws mentioned to smooth traffic flow.

Further, he has criticized the government for slow construction of the four roads planned to link the main peninsula with the Zone A. So far, only one of the roads has been completed.

Although the overpass connecting the north of the main reservoir to the Zone A is being built, it is only set to be completed in October 2024. As there is still a year and a half to go and traffic at the Pearl of the Orient will gradually intensify, the lawmaker has asked about the progress of the construction and whether the construction will conclude on time.

He has also questioned the government on the progress of the overpass linking Avenida de Amizade with the Zone A and another linking the Zone A and the New Urban Zone B, as no news has been released since the 2019 feasibility study for the former and no news whatsoever has been released on the latter.

The Oriental Pearl roundabout has a heavy workload because traffic to and from Areia Preta, Border Gate and Fai Chi Kei, Taipa, as well as the Zone A merges there.