Macau Matters | Some transport gripes

Richard Whitfield

Hac Sa Beach on Coloane Island was a cheap car park for Macau residents for years until they recently put in parking meters. After less than 3 years of use the parking meters are being ripped out and replaced by a new system which has a single pay point for every 10+ parking bays. The new system only has instructions in Portuguese and Chinese which is incredibly parochial for a supposedly international city like Macau. But I am more amazed by the waste and poor planning that led to the previous parking meters being installed for such a short time before they were replaced – incompetence or corruption? I suspect corruption, and we will see if it gets investigated.

Then we have the giant bus, truck and trailer park that is the industrial area behind the One Oasis housing estate on Coloane Island. Every large vehicle and trailer in Macau seems to park there overnight and when not in use and you regularly see workers transferring goods between containers in the area. Why are these vehicles permitted to clutter this area? In most countries bus, truck and heavy machinery owners need to have transport yards to store their vehicles but in Macau they seem to be able to store everything on public roads with impunity – why is this?

Before the parking meters, cars parked at Hac Sa Beach for months and were never towed, as they would have been in most other countries. Nonetheless, I know of two government vehicle impound lots – one near the go-kart track and another near “The Dome” sports center that never seem to be used. They fascinate me because of the high quality vehicles they contain which just seem to be rotting away – There is a Bentley, a Porsche Boxster and other convertibles and sports cars and any number of expensive German machines in these lots. For years I have asked random people what was the story with these impound lots because vehicles seemed to arrive but never leave. Only recently has one person told me that they occasionally put the vehicles up for tender. Anybody know when? And how they advertise these tenders?

Then we have the situation where it is almost impossible to import a vehicle from Hong Kong and get it registered for use in Macau. A friend used to have a London cab that he could only drive round his car park because he could not get it registered here. And yet, I am told it is not uncommon to ship Macau cars to and from Hong Kong for repainting because the quality of the workmanship done there is so much higher. The situation seems nonsensical to me. I, for one, would like to be able to buy a car in Hong Kong ship it here and easily register it because the selection of vehicles available there is so much larger.

And we have the never-ending saga of when Macau vehicles will be able to drive on Hengqin Island. It has been talked about for years and years and every few months the question is raised again during news lulls. Quite frankly, I expect to die before being able to drive on Hengqin island, which is a pity because there are interesting places to see there, and I have always liked such sightseeing. On a somewhat related topic there is the issue of driving to/from Hong Kong over the bridge once it is finally completed. It ain’t going to happen.

These little stories just illustrate how poorly the Macau population is served by the officials it has appointed to manage the transport system. I see incompetence and self-serving behavior everywhere I look and we deserve better.