It's true...and it's bloody irritating....
Today the SCMP (subscription required) revealed to the rest of HK what us Star Ferry commuters have known for a while....it takes longer to cross the harbour, it's a rougher ride and the boats sail less frequently....all in all it's just not as an efficient method of commuting as it used to be....
".....The Star Ferry makes about 100 fewer trips a day across Victoria Harbour from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui than it did a year ago because of the harbour reclamation, the ferry company has revealed
The service between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui has been reduced from 384 trips on weekdays to 281, a drop of about 25 per cent. Each journey now takes two minutes longer.
The reclamation work in front of Edinburgh Place Pier in Central means the ferry can no longer take a straight course across the harbour, but must go around the reclamation site. Each trip now covers 1.56km instead of 1.5km, and takes nine minutes instead of seven.
Since November, the frequency on the route has decreased from every four minutes to six minutes in peak hours, and from every six to 12 minutes to eight to 12 minutes in off-peak hours.
Mr Leung said rougher water conditions - the narrower harbour has increased turbulence - had not affected maintenance costs.
The move to the new Star Ferry pier - tentatively scheduled for March - will knock 300 metres off the trip.
But passenger levels remain "stable" at 53,000 a day, Star Ferry's assistant general manager Johnny Leung said.
And, according to a consultant's report commissioned by Star Ferry, the move will also knock between 7 and 13 per cent off the number of passengers using it."
The times they give for the length of the sailing and the time between the sailing do not include embarkation or dis-embarkation....for this you can add an average of about five to seven minutes...some evenings it can take about 10 minutes as the harbour is so rough...maybe I am just unlucky.
".....The Star Ferry makes about 100 fewer trips a day across Victoria Harbour from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui than it did a year ago because of the harbour reclamation, the ferry company has revealed
The service between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui has been reduced from 384 trips on weekdays to 281, a drop of about 25 per cent. Each journey now takes two minutes longer.
The reclamation work in front of Edinburgh Place Pier in Central means the ferry can no longer take a straight course across the harbour, but must go around the reclamation site. Each trip now covers 1.56km instead of 1.5km, and takes nine minutes instead of seven.
Since November, the frequency on the route has decreased from every four minutes to six minutes in peak hours, and from every six to 12 minutes to eight to 12 minutes in off-peak hours.
Mr Leung said rougher water conditions - the narrower harbour has increased turbulence - had not affected maintenance costs.
The move to the new Star Ferry pier - tentatively scheduled for March - will knock 300 metres off the trip.
But passenger levels remain "stable" at 53,000 a day, Star Ferry's assistant general manager Johnny Leung said.
And, according to a consultant's report commissioned by Star Ferry, the move will also knock between 7 and 13 per cent off the number of passengers using it."
The times they give for the length of the sailing and the time between the sailing do not include embarkation or dis-embarkation....for this you can add an average of about five to seven minutes...some evenings it can take about 10 minutes as the harbour is so rough...maybe I am just unlucky.
posted by Madame Chiang at 1:33 pm
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