Stop ‘paying lip service’ to cycling projects and get serious, NGO warns Hong Kong government

Lawmakers must commit to investing in cycling infrastructure projects instead of just “paying lip service” to eco-friendly policies, a campaign group has warned.

Upgrades to the city’s roads, which could cost as little as HK$100,000 on parts of Hong Kong Island, are vital in reversing the city’s growing air pollution problem, according to the non-governmental organisation Hong Kong Clean Air Network.

Reiterating its support for better cycling provisions in Hong Kong, group spokeswoman Winnie Tse Wing-lam said she remained unconvinced by the government’s commitment to promote cycling as a green transport.

She said current and past cycling schemes had mistakenly been confined to towns in the New Territories, because the government still did not consider it a regular form of commuting.

“Cycling is one of the key policies the government can promote to tackle and alleviate climate change,” she said. “The government still has plenty of room to improve in this regard. They should not just pay lip service to these ideas. There is no detailed policy framework to support cycling.”

Last year the NGO’s midyear review found that concentrations of nitrogen oxides in the city’s air were consistently higher than the maximum safe levels set by the World Health Organisation in the last five years.

The group estimates Hong Kong’s air is 1.9 times more polluted than Tokyo’s, and 1.6 times worse than Singapore’s.

Meanwhile a study by University of Hong Kong researchers in 2013 found that air pollution could be causing 3,000 premature deaths a year in the city, and losses of HK$39 billion to the economy.

A significant contributing factor is the increase in the numbers of private cars on the roads. There were 525,193 licensed private cars in Hong Kong by the end of March last year, according to the Transport Department.

This is still considerably lower than some Asian countries including Singapore and Taiwan, but members of the Transport Advisory Committee emphasised the numbers must be curbed in order to ease congestion and pollution levels.

Tse said all Hongkongers were suffering as a result of the city’s declining air quality. She added that upgrading road cycling facilities was one possible solution which would be cheap and relatively easy to implement.

CYCLING STATISTICS AROUND THE WORLD

Hong Kong

There are no official statistics for the number of cyclists who commute daily by bike, and while tens of thousands are believed to cycle as part of their journey, studies suggest this equates to less than 1 per cent of daily trips in a population of more than seven million people. The city lacks a bicycle hire scheme for cycling on roads, but there are bikes for hire in some park areas and at bike shops. Designated bike lanes are largely confined to rural areas such as in the New Territories, and the government discourages cycling on the roads in urban districts. The city has 57,700 public bicycle parking spaces, according to the government. In 2015, 10 cyclists died on the roads, while 234 were seriously injured, according to statistics from the Transport Department.

Taipei

Cycling is legal on about 386km of city centre pavement and there are plans to triple the bicycle lanes to 193km in the next three years. Some pavements have been widened to 3.5 metres in a bid to make it easier for cyclists and pedestrians to share the space. It is estimated 5 per cent of journeys in the population now involve cycling. This can largely be attributed to the success of the city’s YouBike share scheme, which was launched in 2009. It now includes about 7,000 bikes at 200 locations across Taiwan’s capital, which has a population of about 2.7 million people. The authorities hope to double the scale of the bike hire project by 2018. It costs just over HK$1 to rent a bike for 30 minutes, after which the charge increases progressively. The scheme is widely seen as a significant step towards making Taipei more green and sustainable. There are continuing efforts to make cycling safer as the number of cycling accidents has increased. Eight cyclists were killed on the roads in 2015, statistics show.

London

England’s capital city, where more than 600,000 journeys per day – about 0.6 per cent of all trips – are now made by bicycle, has taken major strides in the last decade to becoming more bike-friendly. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan committed £145 million (HK$1.37 billion) a year to promoting cycling — about double that of his predecessor Boris Johnson. The city, which has a resident population of about 8.5 million people, is currently home to seven cycle superhighways, giving commuters access to the city from outer boroughs, and there are plans for a further five. The government promotes ‘Quietways’, for less confident cyclists who may want to travel at a slower pace in less crowded areas. A citywide bike hire scheme, known as Santander Cycles, charges £2 (HK$19) to rent a bike for 24 hours. Nine cyclists died on the city’s roads in 2016.

Copenhagen

The Danish capital was ranked the most bike-friendly city in the world in a study by Copenhagenize Design Company last year. Copenhagen boasts 5.2 bikes for every car, with an estimated 36 per cent of trips to work or schools made by bike. A cycle superhighway connects the central area to the suburban town of Albertslund, with plans for more such connections. A city-wide, three-lane bicycle network by 2025, dubbed ‘PLUSNet’ – on which cyclists are encouraged to converse with each other and ride at their own pace – is in the pipeline. The move is intended to persuade more families to cycle together. Bycyklen (The City Bike) is their main bike hire scheme, launched in 2014. Bike rental is about 30 krone (HK$34) per hour at 100 locations within the city. The number of cycling accidents has decreased since 1995. The city has a population of about 600,000, but this increases to 1.3 million people if the wider urban area is included.