Fact of the Day: 1,600 Coaches Cross the Border Daily

The high-speed trains from Hong Kong will go to many mainland destinations

Hong Kong will soon get two major transport links -- the high-speed train and bridge -- to link with the mainland even more.

The West Kowloon train station starts service September 23

For some people these infrastructure projects are further evidence of the mainland forcing Hong Kong to be closer to the motherland, on the other they are two other options to get to destinations across the border.

What I didn't know was the existing business in buses that ferry people back and forth to various places in Guangdong daily.

A staggering 583,075 coaches crossed the border from Hong Kong last year, or almost 1,600 coaches per day.

What's also interesting is that one bus company reports 60 percent of its customers are Hong Kong people who need to cross the border daily, the remaining 40 percent are mainland tourists.

There are already many coaches taking people to Guangdong

It turns out the current rail and ferry routes don't help these commuters much and so they rely on these coaches. They go to destinations like Guangzhou, Futian in Shenzhen, and Panyu in Guangzhou.

However, now with the new high-speed rail station at West Kowloon opening later this month on September 23, this will be direct competition for the coaches, cutting the commute times; though with the opening of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge, this will give coach companies other routes they can go that the high-speed rail doesn't, like Taishan, Zhongshan, Kaiping and Enping.

Will this mean over half a million bus rides daily or even more?

The Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge will open soon

Either way Beijing is probably pleased that Hong Kong people are embracing the saying, "build and they will come"... to the Greater Bay Area! No it's not San Francisco, but an amalgamation of several Chinese cities, along with Hong Kong and Macau.

We don't want to get left behind, do we?