Cotai for Petrolheads

Getting there involves a road trip

The ferries serving Cotai directly are getting fuller by the month, but passengers still require a transfer by road to the actual doors of the casino properties. There’s none of the convenience of the monorail serving the Las Vegas Strip. That’s due to change—possibly within four years with the arrival of a light rail system; Macau’s first ever railway. And within six years, Cotai is expected to have other links feeding from mainland China.

The first phase of the light rail system, including four stations serving Cotai, is likely to cost US$1 billion. In October last year, the government said the first stage could be open by 2014, though the scheme has been put back several times already. A further US$11 billion is being spent on a 31- mile long bridge across the Pearl River Delta to link Macau to neighbouring Zhuhai in mainland China and onward to Hong Kong.

That could be ready by 2016, but it is likely to be reserved for freight and commercial vehicles such as buses, because of the lack of space for parking private cars in Macau. China’s ongoing railway modernisation programme has already halved the rail journey time between Beijing and Shanghai and is expected to do something similar for journey times from these major cities into the mainland cities next door to Macau.