Metro fever has gripped Hong Kong. On December 28, the city opened its long-awaited South Island Line, the first rail system to serve the southern half of Hong Kong Island. Subway enthusiasts thronged the new route on opening day, staring at the public artwork in each station and taking videos out the front of the new driverless cars.
But the new line has its detractors. Though it serves a community badly in need of alternate transport, the South Island Line also promises to feed nearly 170,000 passengers a day into Admiralty Station—a major interchange already known for rush hour congestion. Though all has gone well barring a few power glitches, there are fears that when a fourth line connects to Admiralty in 2021, the concourses will be totally overwhelmed.
This problem will be familiar to anyone who's played the transport simulation game Mini Metro. It's always the way, isn't it? You build a new line to serve a developing area, and suddenly all those new passengers are clogging up your stations and filling your trains. Expanding the network always puts pressure on your established line. Look at the Hong Kong subway map and you can see trouble brewing.
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