Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kiwiduncan]

Seoul city hall has announced quite dramatic plans to reduce the number of car lanes in the city centre and replace them with widened pavements and new cycle paths. City Hall's plan is to promote a shift from the current car-centred traffic system to a system which will encourage tourism, culture and pedestrianisation.

According to what I've seen on the Internet the focus is going to be on the area within the 4 gates of the city (Namdaemun, Seodaemoon, Dongdaemoon and the northern one, the name and location of which escapes me). Within this area the number of traffic lanes will be reduced, footpaths will be widened and dedicated bike lanes will be built and restrictions will be placed on private vehicles entering the city centre.

Traffic lanes on Sogongro, from city hall to the Namsan 3 tunnel will be reduced from the current 5 in each direction to 2, with cyclepaths and wider pavements on both sides of the street. Cheonggyecheon road's lanes will be reduced from 2 lanes in each direction to one, and Chongro will have its 4 lanes in each direction reduced to 3, all the way between Sejeongro intersection to Dongdaemoon. One lane of traffic will also be reduced in both directions from Uljiro 2 Ga to 5 Ga and, at the same time as standard car parks are closed, new dedicated parks for motorbikes will be provided in order to improve deliveries.

With these changes City Hall is hoping to see a reduction in air pollution and improved traffic harmony along with a 20% drop vehicle movements.

Anyway, it's good news for any teachers out there who fancy the idea of cycling around a hopefully cleaner, less dangerous city centre in the future. According to what I read, City Hall is hoping to have it all done by 2010.

[GoldMember]

Reorganize???? How can you reorganize something that was not organized in the first place.

[Atavistic]

[kiwiduncan]

[Imbroglio]

Yeah, the Koreans will just drive on the sidewalks - especially the motorcycles!

[kiwiduncan]

Hopefully they'll have barriers to keep all the groups separate.

I know the whole plan at the moment seems like an unrealistic pipedream, but I hope they can go ahear with it even in some limited form.

Fuel prices are going to keep on going up and there are really no great magic answers so far (hybrid is best, biofuels and hydrogen are problematic). The first thing the Korean government needs to do is clamp down on SUVs and try to make smaller cars more fashionable and 'sexy'

[mithridates]

I think they can do it. Redesigning city roads is completely different from restructuring visa laws. Don't forget that they took down that whole road to rebuild the Cheonggyecheon.

The city is also redoing the sidewalks so that they aren't as lumpy and full of cracks where girls always get their heels caught. No, I see no reason why they can't do this. It's kind of silly for people here to always complain about the sounds of neverending construction and then suddenly make the claim that they probably won't follow through on something as simple as this. If there's one thing Koreans do a lot of, it's changing their cities.

Preventing people from riding their motorbikes there is another story though. That's going to be tough.

[Atavistic]

[quote="mithridates"If there's one thing Koreans do a lot of, it's changing their cities.
[/quote]

That's true. Thousands of years of wars and fires and royal families running from one place to another will make changing the cities an easy mindset to adopt...

[kiwiduncan]