The Lion Rock Tunnel, the first major road tunnel in Hong Kong, is a twin-bored toll tunnel, connecting Hin Tin,

Sha Tin Sha Tin, also spelt Shatin, is a neighbourhood along Shing Mun River in the eastern New Territories, Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Sha Tin District. Sha Tin is one of the neighbourhoods of the Sha Tin New Town project. The ne ...

in the

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

and

New Kowloon New Kowloon is an area in Hong Kong, bounded in the south by Boundary Street, and in the north by the ranges of the Eagle's Nest, Beacon Hill, Lion Rock, Tate's Cairn and Kowloon Peak. It covers the present-day Kwun Tong District and Wong Tai S ...

near

Kowloon Tong Kowloon Tong () is an area of Hong Kong located in Kowloon. The majority of the area is in the Kowloon City District. Its exaclocationis south of the Lion Rock, north of Boundary Street, east of the East Rail line and west of Grampian Road. It i ...

. It has two southbound lanes, and there are two northbound lanes in the Second Lion Rock Tunnel, with the toll booths located at the Sha Tin end. They are vital components of Route 1.

History

The construction of Lion Rock Tunnel started in January 1962. The tunnel was opened on 14 November 1967, as a 1.43 km dual-one single

bore tunnel A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata. They may also be used for microtunneling. They can be designed to bore thro ...

. This tunnel is often described as a by-product of the Plover Cove Scheme, which was a project to build a water supply tunnel through the range of hills separating

and the rest of the

. The tunnel was designed by Young Au Young, a graduate of

Lingnan Lingnan (; Vietnamese: Lĩnh Nam) is a geographic area referring to the lands in the south of the Nanling Mountains. The region covers the modern Chinese subdivisions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as modern northe ...

and civil engineer The government later saw the need for another road link between

and

when it decided to develop the latter as a new town. The Second Lion Rock Tunnel, which is 1.41 km long and situated to the west of, and lying parallel to, the old tunnel, was opened to traffic on 18 January 1978. The new tunnel serves northbound traffic towards Sha Tin, while the old one serves southbound traffic towards Kowloon. Traffic in both directions share one of the tunnels when the other undergoes maintenance.

Management

Since 1993,

Serco Serco Group plc is a British company with headquarters based in Hook, Hampshire, England. Serco primarily derives income as a contractor for the provision of government services, most prominently in the sectors of health, transport, justice, i ...

has been contracted to manage, operate and maintain the tunnel, having successfully retained the contract in 1996 and 2000."Transport–Lion Rock Tunnel"
The Tunnel has achieved both

ISO 9001 The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 90 ...

and OHASA18001 in 2004. The toll to traverse the Lion Rock Tunnel is

HK$ The Hong Kong dollar (, sign: HK$; code: HKD) is the official currency of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It is subdivided into 100 cents or 1000 mils. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the monetary authority of Hong Kong and ...

8 each way. On 23 April 2012, Greater Lucky (H.K.) Company Limited successfully bid the contract and took over the management with effect from 1 August 2012.

Renovation of the tunnel

As the facilities within the tubes of Lion Rock Tunnel suffered from serious deterioration due to ageing, as well as broken concrete on the road surface which caused bumping when vehicles pass through, the Highways Department decided to undergo renovation works upon the tunnels in 2008. It will extend the lives of the tunnels for around 80 years more. However, the renovation may cause even more serious congestion of the tunnels and may change the starting time for one-tube-two-way traffic (using one tube only for both direction of traffic) from 12 am to 9 or 10 pm. The fire-resisting shields on the wall of the tunnels and the ceilings would be renovated, while the words "LION ROCK TUNNEL" and its Chinese counterparts would be retained on the sides of the entrances and exits of the tunnels.

Current usage

With the rapid development of the new towns, the tunnels have already reached its saturation flow just like

Cross-Harbour Tunnel The Cross-Harbour Tunnel (abbreviated ''CHT'' or ''XHT'') is the first tunnel in Hong Kong built underwater. It consists of two steel road tunnels each with two lanes constructed using the single shell immersed tube method. It is the earl ...

. The flow was eased by other tunnels being put into service later, such as

Shing Mun Tunnels The Shing Mun Tunnels are a system of tunnels and viaducts in the New Territories, Hong Kong connecting the new towns of Tsuen Wan to the west and Sha Tin to the east. They are a part of Route 9 and the Tsuen Wan entrance is the reset poin ...

Tate's Cairn Tunnel Tate's Cairn Tunnel is a four-lane road tunnel in Hong Kong. Constructed as part of Route 2, it links Diamond Hill, New Kowloon with Siu Lek Yuen, Sha Tin, New Territories East. It opened on 26 June 1991. Its toll plaza is situated on the S ...

Tsing Sha Highway Tsing Sha Highway () is a major expressway in Hong Kong, which links the island of Tsing Yi to Sha Tin. The road is part of Route 8, which starts in Sha Tin and terminates in Tung Chung. It was opened in March 2008 and extended in December 20 ...

. Nonetheless the convenience of its connection and directness, with a lower fee than the Tate's Cairn Tunnel, Lion Rock Tunnel contributes to the highest daily average vehicles flow of all non-harbour-crossing tunnels. 90,608 vehicles used the tunnels everyday on average in 2014.

References

External links