Eastern Harbour Crossing
The Eastern Harbour Crossing, abbreviated as "EHC" (), is a combined road-rail tunnel that crosses beneath Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. Opened on 21 September 1989, it connects Quarry Bay, Hong Kong Island and Cha Kwo Ling, Kowloon East. History. The Hong Kong Government negotiated with several consortia to adopt the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model in planning new tunnels in different parts of the territory. In 1986, the government gave New Hong Kong Tunnel the right to run the Tunnel on a 30-year franchisee with lease expiring in August 2016. The tunnel features two components , a road part and a rail part: The Chinese investment group CITIC Pacific is interested in both parts, controlling the road part (71% stake) and has a 50% stake in the rail part. CITIC also controls 50% of the Western Harbour Tunnel Company. The Kowloon tunnel portal is located next to a public housing estate, Yau Lai Estate. Tunnel tolls. Tolls are collected manually or electronically in both directions at the toll plaza on the Cha Kwo Ling side. Traffic. , there are 46 bus routes passing through the tunnel. Controversies. In June 2005, CITIC decided to raise the toll for  using Eastern Harbour Crossing from HK$15 to HK$25 for private vehicles and up to 67% for other classes of vehicles, under the fare adjustment mechanism derived from the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model. This increase aroused criticisms that the model was detrimental to the public interest, with the increase shifting more traffic to the already congested Cross-Harbour Tunnel.