Transportation Perspectives from the South China Morning Post

That is from their May 7th, 2013 issue, which is rich of Transportation perspective,…,
and eventually illustrates the dichotomy of thought on it between the Western world and Asia

Jaywalking is responsible of the Beijing traffic woes

As you could know, Beijing is facing massive traffic issues, and here like too often in North America before, it is considered that the pedestrians are the problem. Enforcing the jaywalking laws is not an easy matter but it is deemed necessary by chinese,…this to be a “world class” country… at par with the USA…
In Vancouver, Councillor Heather Deal, whose devoted great amount of VPD time and taxpayer money to enforce the local jaywalking laws, couldn’t agree more [5].

In the Meantime, it is worth to note that in the not so “world class” countries such UK or France, jaywalking is legal as in many other European countries, and still it is generally safer to be a pedestrian there than in Vancouver and more generally in North America.

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Cycling in Hong Kong raises a safety issue

The edition contains not less than 2 articles related to cycling in Hong Kong: “Cyclist see open roads up ahead”, and “Cyclists face uphill ride on buses, MTR”.

Cycling is pretty much foreign to Hong Kongers: the fact that the Chairman of the Hong Kong Cycling alliance, Martin Turner, is a British raised individual is tale telling…And when cycling is considered it is mostly for recreational purpose, could lament Martin. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidences seem to show that cycling is on the rise in Hong Kong, like anywhere else, but it seems to be little appetite to quantify that:

Cycling seems on the rise in Hong Kong, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find a free spot to park your bike, before boarding the Transit system – notice Police can seize bike tied to the handrail – Credit Photo (4)

Statistics show that bike accidents are on the rise too. Helmet laws and bike licensing, are called by some quarters, to reverse this worrisome trend!

Turner has another opinion, and is lobbying for bike rack on bus, like in San Francisco, or Vancouver,…a North American specificity not seen Europe. This promise to be a tough sell, but there is lot of things to do to improve cycling in Hong Kong beside that:

Hong Kong bike lane (Along Ting Kok Rd, Kong Kong NT): More often that not, Hong Kong's cyclists are expected to walk their bikes to the Bike path... and dismount at intersections...what by the way is usually not respected! -credit photo left (4), right, Google

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Light Rail or Monorail in Kong Kong

The debate concerns the redevelopment of the former Hong Kong’s airport: Kai Tak, which still look pretty much like below:

View on Kai Tak, the Former Hong Kong Airport.

The Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) of Hong Kong has a grand vision for the site, which seems reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s cite radieuse, including a “people mover” under the form of a monorail [1]:

Proposed Monorail for Kai Tak new district

Veolia operating The Hong Kong Trams, is making the case for a tramway. Many readers of the South China Morning Post support this idea. Norman Y. S. Heung, project manager at the CEDD Office, explains it is “Practically impossible to accommodate tram system at Kai Tak”, because taking too much road space (sic)…Worth to note that most of the area is not even built yet!

Many other arguments are advanced in favour of the Monorail, which is also presented as a tourist attraction… but at the end the quality of the urban environment is not one of them. It is also explained that the “walking environment will be improved by provision of footbridges and [underpasses]” (sic).

So Does the Kai Tak’s monorail will look like the Chongqing one , or does Hong Kongers will push for a different street experience, may be on the model of the Kunming’s Zhengyi Rd?

Left, Chongqing (China): An avenue with a Monorail (opened in 2011) - Right, Kunming (China): Zhengyi Rd offers a Bld experience, which at par with the ones more traditionally founded in Europe - credit photo left (3), right, (4)

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[1] See the video and other information at Hong Kong CEDD

[2] Old Cat

[3] South China Morning Post

[4] VivenDesign

[5] Vancouver launches campaign to educate ‘fragile’ pedestrians, Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun, February 07, 2012.

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Pedestrian vs Transit: The Wellington’s Golden Mile case

Normally, the both, complementing each others, work in harmony, but it happens that an aggressive pedestrianism agenda can conflict with Transit geometry

The Wellington’s Golden Mile case

The Wellington Golden Mile is an area of Down town Wellington, New Zealand, including noticeably Manners Mall, an historically important Transit spine:

Manners Mall/ Cuba Street circa 1920
a busy transit corridor, lot of retail, lot of people – credit photo (1)

Aggressive pedestrianism: the Kiwi version

Manners Mall, strategically located, full of shopping opportunities and pedestrians, made an ideal target for pedestrianization, what has been done toward the end of the 70’s. That was allowed by rerouting Transit on adjacent streets:

The pedestrian Manners Mall was just a small segment, putting buses on a 'slight detour' - credit photo (9)

They put a bus lane through my heart

In 2008, the Wellington city council came with the project to reintroduce buses on the pedestrian mall:

Reintroducing buses in the once pedestrian Mall, make the bus network much simpler

The reasons for this project were to end the Transit issues caused by the rerouting (involved by the Pedestrian Mall) [2]:

• poor journey time reliability
• indirect routings
• poor legibility

Needless, to say, the project has encountered fierce opposition: the arguments are known:

• What the heck such a few meter of pedestrianized road make a problem?
• There is plenty of road where the bus can goes: Why absolutely there?
• Give me a break: It is only a 5mn walk to the bus!
• …

An example of argumentation:

examples of discussions surrounding the pedestrian/transit trade off in Wellington’s Golden Mile (click on pictures for better readability)

In despite of the local Green Party support for the plan, citizen feedbacks were overwhelmy negative: 74% opposed to the re-opening of the pedestrian Mall to buses during the first public consultation [8], a sizable facebook group was constituted, and even a song has been written in defense of the pedestrian mall [3]:

Alas for the pedestrian Mall, it is a case of Transit geometry. If one want to reduce auto reliance and have more pedestrians on the street; attractive transit is key, and good transit geometry is paramount. The Wellington people understood those reasons and the proposal was implemented in time for the 2011 Wolrd Rugby Cup.

Today The buses are flowing down on the once pedestrian only mall. Pedestrians are also the winner of this new configuration: A more direct bus route, open more pedestrianization possibilities, while still keeping pedestrian area accessible by transit, and here it was eventually an argument able to sell the project:

The buses returning on Manners mall, allow more pedestrian oriented streets than before

The new configuration, not only make sense from a transit perspective, but it also makes sense of a pedestrian perspective, by joining 2 pedestrian areas (that is via Cuba street), now irrigated; and not circumvoluted; by transit

That is in accord to the usually successful pedestrian philosophy at play in Europe, which is not to make life more complicate for transit, but to improve the city livability by discourage automobile use (see also [4])

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Transit geometry

AFAIK, transit geometry is a term coined by Jarret Walker, to recover some different transit concepts, which are concretely exposed on a real life example in part 2 from the circling the square series, by Peter Marriott, on the Pricetags blog. The transit geometry concept boils down to mirror the desire lines one (concept often associated to Gaston Bachelard [6])[10]

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Aggressive pedestrianism

Thought successful pedestrian areas are more often than not the result of a comprehensive transportation plan, addressing well identified problem, as seen in Europe [4], but also, more recently in New York [7], aggressive pedestrianism is a philosophy at 180 degree of it:

• A Vancouver example

A Bob Ransford’s post nearly perfectly syncretizes the aggressive pedestrianism philosophy. It illustrates why transit arteries – the path of least disturbance for motorists- are the main targets of the aggressive pedestrianism movement, which unfortunately is still getting lot of traction in Vancouver:

Great article Bob! RT @BobRansford debate over closing a 100 meters of Robson Street has ignored perspective. tinyurl.com/d8vnorv

—
VPSN (@vpsn) November 29, 2012

For the out of town reader (and apparently the not so out of town too), What is at stake in the case raised in the Bob Ransford’s post is not 100 meters of road, but the fact that this 100m are on an important transit spine of the Vancouver network, with no obvious rerouting alternative [5].

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[1] City of Wellington

[2] Central Area Bus Operational Review, Final report, Opus consultant, Wellington NZ, November 2009

[3] “Manners Mall Emo Song”, Robbie Ellis, 2009

[4] Transit as part of the urban fabric

[5] see block 51: oct 15 and 17th events, a summary, and Peter Marriott’s Circling the square series

[6] La poetique de l’espace, Gaston Bachelard, 1958, Paris

[7] see NYC DOT press release Release # 06-56, October 12, 2006; See World Class Streets: Remaking New York City’s Public Realm, New York City DOT, 2008

[8] Restoring the Golden Mile :Summary of Consultation, Wellington NZ, 2008.

[9] www.aktnz.co.nz

[10] “mirror” because geometry is a rational term whereas “desire” is apriori not. In the case of Manners Mall, the sunny side of Manners mall has sidewalk 20% wider than the shaded side mirroring the pedestrian “line of desire” – Pedestrians, as transit users could prefer journeying thru vibrant street than others for reasons expressed in [4] (which could have to do with some anthropological gregarious trait of humanity among other reason)…