Time for Hong Kong to reclaim the streets
Gavin Coates says the city's urbandesign must cater to pedestrians first, rather than car owners,if we want fewer traffic jams, cleaner air and a more pleasantlife - one that compares favourably withother world cities
Over the past 30 years, the harbour has shrunk, towers have soared and towns have been raised from mudflats in the New Territories.
But one thing has remained unchanged. The streets in the older urban areas are still clogged with boiling, smoke-belching traffic jams that achieve nothing but frayed tempers. Queen's Road Central is still in semi-permanent gridlock and pedestrians scurry along the narrow footpaths of Hennessy Road and Queen's Road East like rats in a gutter with nary a public seat to be seen. A sign on a railing in Wan Chai says it all. Showing a pedestrian being run down by a driverless car, it shouts: "Be careful when crossing the road".
The message is clear: motor vehicles rule and pedestrians are just an inconvenience. You can see where the power lies when the non-car-owning population, that is, 95per cent of us, is forced into about 20per cent of the public space, based on one comparison of the widths of road and foot path.
Considering that car owners are also pedestrians , some if not most of the time, the condition of the pedestrian environment affects the entire population. Other "world cities" have been forging ahead with pedestrianisation and traffic calming, a process of slowing down traffic - Copenhagen 60 years ago, London's Carnaby Street 50 years ago, and New York's "World Class Streets" initiative in the past five years.
Here, there have been some promising starts. Nathan Road south of Haiphong Road was reduced from six lanes to four, allowing footpaths to be widened, and trees planted in the pavements and road divider. The southern end of Paterson Street was closed to traffic and the footpaths widened along Great George Street in Causeway Bay. Unfortunately, what looked like the beginning of a complete overhaul of our older streets seems to have petered out and been forgotten.
Interestingly, when very large numbers of people have to be moved quickly, efficiently and safely, to see the Lunar New Year fireworks for example, the nearby streets are closed to vehicular traffic.