The plan to turn Des Voeux Road into a pedestrian and tram precinct is one of the most imaginative urban planning schemes to emerge in Hong Kong for some time. So congratulations to the Hong Kong Institute, the Civic Exchange and others involved in the project.
Let's hope the government buys into the idea and proceeds with it. But it is the government that will be the main sticking point with this. So many projects and proposals are shuffled around numerous departments for years in a kind of bureaucratic "pass the project" game or spend years in a limbo known as "public consultation".
It has become apparent over the past few years that it is very difficult to get anyone in the civil service to stick their necks out and say, "this is a good idea - lets do it".
It is true some good projects do make it through the gauntlet of government bureaucracy. The pedestrianisation of Stanley was achieved within about 18 months from inception to conclusion. However, that was some years ago and as we have remarked before, Hong Kong is choking on its bureaucracy, so we are not expecting rapid progress on this.
We have only to look at the harbour to see what a mess our planners have made of it. Take a stroll from the central ferry piers east towards the Convention and Exhibition Centre.
If you're feeling meditative then you've come to the right place because you can brood undisturbed by others, because hardly anyone goes there. How this could have become such a dead area on the edge of one of the world's finest harbours is barely conceivable in what is supposed to be Asia's World City. It is a monument to the awful governance and planning that pervades this city.
Right in the middle of this stretch of prime waterfront we come across a fenced-off eyesore which extends for 150 metres blocking the view. This is the area reserved for the PLA pier. This will be there for some time as we know our civil servants are terrified of doing anything they think will offend the central government.