Hong Kong’s first ‘barrier-free’ waterfront opens in Wan Chai, as public urged to embrace creativity over safety fears
- Authorities took more than a decade to implement idea after surveying other cities, with move part of ongoing drive to extend and enhance promenades
- Water taxi service also in the works, but delayed amid pandemic and more time needed for installations
Hong Kong’s first “barrier-free” waterfront at the iconic Victoria Harbour opened on Christmas Eve, but it has taken more than a decade for the government to implement the idea in a city obsessed with safety.
The initiative is part of an ongoing project to extend and enhance public spaces on both sides of the harbour and build an interconnected promenade, with HK$6 billion (US$773.8 million) set aside last year for the Harbour Office to contribute to building a “liveable city”.
The new section of the Wan Chai promenade, which spans about 300 metres, still has some wire to prevent people from falling into the water, but it will be the closest to a barrier-free waterfront in Hong Kong, until part of a nearby sports and recreation precinct featuring landing steps that lead into the water opens by the end of next year.
A “fenceless” promenade was envisaged more than a decade ago after advisers conducted site visits in Singapore and Sydney, but the idea has not easily taken root in Hong Kong, according to Vincent Ng Wing-shun, chairman of the Harbourfront Commission, which advises the government on planning, design and management in such areas.
“It is an almost automatic belief that we need to put up fences. But when we look at other places in the world, and even when we observe how people use the space [here] … they want to go over the fence and be near the water,” he told the Post.
“We are experimenting. People will make comments and there will be questions and doubts [about safety] ... but can we just try it out and see whether people like it or not?”