A new public bus route between Coloane’s Seac Pai Van public-housing community and the Ka Ho area where a number of social service facilities are situated will start operating this morning, the Transport Bureau (DSAT) has announced.
Today’s launch of the new route, which was announced in a DSAT statement on Friday, came after last week’s release of a written interpellation by lawmaker Ella Lei Cheng I calling for the operation of an express public bus route serving the Ka Ho neighbourhood.
A number of new care homes and other social service facilities have been set up near the oil depot on the Ka Ho waterfront over recent years, such as the Health Bureau’s (SSM) Ka Ho Rehabilitation Hospital and a care home run by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (aka Gung Luen).
In her written interpellation, Lei pointed out that there was only one public bus route departing from the peninsula serving the area near the Ka Ho oil depot, No. 21A, which runs on a particularly convoluted route with a low trip frequency. She said that the situation was making it “very inconvenient” for family members to visit those living in the social service facilities in the area.
The No. 21A bus plies between the peninsula’s Barra area at the southern tip of the Inner Harbour area and the Ka Ho oil depot.
Hitherto, there has been another public bus route serving Ka Ho, i.e., No.15, which departs from Taipa’s Ocean Gardens and only serves Ka Ho hamlet, but it is quite a long walk from the social service facilities near the Ka Ho depot.
According to the DSAT statement, the new public bus route, No.15S1, plies between the Seac Pai Van public-housing neighbourhood and the Vila de Nossa Senhora cultural heritage (former leprosarium) area, which is located between the Ka Ho oil depot and the area’s social service facilities.
However, the new route only has five return trips every day, between 10 a.m. and 5:45 p.m.
This undated file photo taken from the Cultural Affairs Bureau’s (IC) website yesterday shows the Vila de Nossa Senhora cultural heritage area.
