Pedestrianising Hong Kong: More streets for walking, fewer cars on our roads

Most car journeys in Hong Kong have only one person in the vehicle. In other words, most of the traffic clogging the streets is down to individuals dragging around a three-seater sofa, a pair of armchairs, and about a ton of metal with them. 

Let’s compare that with vertical transport. Lifts use counterweights and regenerative braking, and are therefore very space and energy-efficient.

That leads to an interesting outcome: a village of hundreds of houses, connected by roads and with shops, schools, and other facilities on the outskirts, may need some wheeled transport to allow people to access all their amenities.

Meanwhile, a tall building in which hundreds of families live connected by a lift shaft, with shops, schools and facilities next door, obviates the need for horizontal transport, and therefore allows for more parkland. That’s how Hong Kong has so much of it.

Hong Kong, blessed as it is not only with a high concentration of space-efficient towers but also the world’s best public transport system, is well positioned to lean into pedestrianisation.

In some ways, it already has. The Central to Mid-Levels escalator is a masterstroke of transporting people, and the Central Elevated Walkway means that it’s possible to cover a lot of ground comfortably on foot, even in rainy weather, which is jolly handy, given that we’re in the subtropics.

The launch of a ferry service between Central and West Kowloon is another nice win. Not only is travelling by boat a delightfully stately way to travel, but it also adds a much-needed public transport link between Hong Kong Island and West Kowloon’s Art Park.

Transport comprises about a fifth of Hong Kong’s total carbon emissions, with private cars the largest individual contributor. The Hong Kong Climate Action Plan 2050 aims to reduce that with electrification.

And indeed, there has been magnificent work done on that front: 16 per cent of private cars are now electric. 

But electric cars are rather like e-cigarettes; an improvement on what came before, but not better than giving up the addiction completely. Electric cars still face the inevitable problem of geometry: taking up lots of space per person transported, requiring parking spots, and generating traffic jams in our tiny city.

While they displace tailpipe pollution from the roadside, electric cars still generate pollution from tyre dust and road wear, more so than petrol counterparts, because heavy batteries cause more wear.

So promoting electric cars to solve transport emissions is only a partial solution; reducing the number of cars on the roads would be better still. But it would be poor form to punish drivers without giving them a comfortable and quick alternative to hopping in the car.

It should be easier and more comfortable for people to get around without cars before putting in policies to dissuade them from driving.

Designing neighbourhoods with pedestrianisation as the priority would be one way of encouraging people out of their cars.

Pedestrianisation requires careful design: accessibility for people with disabilities, strollers or suitcases; plenty of shade and shelter from the subtropical summer weather; seats, drinking fountains and toilets.

None of which is rocket science. Slightly trickier would be figuring out how businesses could manage deliveries or emergency service access.

But even that is a problem worth solving because pedestrianisation often improves business outcomes. It’s easier to pop in and browse if you see a nice-looking shop while sauntering down the street, but you’re unlikely to do that while zooming past in a car. 

Pedestrianisation was so successful before. In fact, it was the victim of its own success, in a baby-with-the-bathwater kind of way.

Sai Yeung Choi Street in Mongkok was a bustling pedestrian boulevard with a thriving retail scene. Buskers were attracted by the crowds, but were unfortunately a combination of uneuphonious and loud.

There were enough noise complaints that the pedestrianisation was cancelled in 2018, and off-key warbling was replaced by the much more euphonious sound of traffic. It’s a shame that the benefits of the pedestrian scheme were lost when the issue was one solely of noise control.

Building better pedestrian zones and managing their foibles rather than removing them outright would have multiple rewards: boosting retail sales, reducing congestion, and improving air quality.

Hong Kong already has the towers and public transport in place to make our own La Rambla, Strøget, or Nanjing Road a roaring success. Let’s reap those rewards.