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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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semi-fly
Joined: 07 Apr 2008
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 Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 9:59 am Post subject: |
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| What about the poor slobs that don't live in or around Seoul, are there any plans to make a nationwide biking path? |
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oskinny1
Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Location: Right behind you!
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 11:50 am Post subject: |
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| semi-fly wrote: |
| What about the poor slobs that don't live in or around Seoul, are there any plans to make a nationwide biking path? |
I want to know as well. I am still trying to decide if I want to bring my road bike over to Busan or not. Anyone have thoughts? |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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A new, modern designed city like Changwon shows it is possible.
Korean road construction companies of the big chaebols are well funded by the government, and don't expect them to scale back operations any time soon. Korea already has one of the best road and bridge infrastructure networks in the world and upgrades will be done well before they're needed to.
Long term, I expect bike paths to become par for the course.
Until then, don't risk it. It only takes one in a thousand drivers in a week of cycling to hit your bike, and given the driving habits in this country I wouldn't risk 1/1000: even odds I'd bet you'd get hit your first week on the road if there's no extended shoulder and cars are expected to yield. |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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| semi-fly wrote: |
| What about the poor slobs that don't live in or around Seoul, are there any plans to make a nationwide biking path? |
Yep, I understand the government is making plans for it now. My only concern is that a lot of the proposed network will be running alongside the "restored" rivers in the "Four River Plan", which looks like 2MB's sly way of prepping Korea's major rivers for his currently shelved Grand Canal project. |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
Long term, I expect bike paths to become par for the course.
Until then, don't risk it. It only takes one in a thousand drivers in a week of cycling to hit your bike, and given the driving habits in this country I wouldn't risk 1/1000: even odds I'd bet you'd get hit your first week on the road if there's no extended shoulder and cars are expected to yield. |
I hear this all the time and have to say that from my experience (3 years of riding in Seoul, 2 years biking in the countryside), Korean drivers are actually fairly considerate towards cyclists. I'm in New Zealand right now and don't feel much safer on the roads here - in fact kiwi drivers seem more likely to be arrogant, SUV driving, redneck pricks.
Anyway, getting back to the good news. Here's a link showing some proposals of how the new set-up in Seoul will look. They're planning to build a bike elevator near Namsan and equip new tunnels with bike paths. Look at the top left picture of how Chongro might be in a few years time. Quite an improvement I think.
http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://news.joins.com/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/200905/htm_2009051504315230003700-001.JPG&imgrefurl=http://article.joins.com/article/article.asp%3Fctg%3D1200%26Total_ID%3D3608191&usg=__AFA2w5ApQLhKTSB1XpW_C7fT_mI=&h=695&w=539&sz=106&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=hKExqHcW8DQzOM:&tbnh=139&tbnw=108&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%25EB%2582%25A8%25EC%2582%25B0%25EC%2597%2594%2B%25EC%259E%2590%25EC%25A0%2584%25EA%25B1%25B0%2B%25EC%2597%2598%25EB%25A6%25AC%25EB%25B2%25A0%25EC%259D%25B4%25ED%2584%25B0%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1
Finally, I just saw this. I think it's just a suggestion for the moment (seems a bit outlandish really) but it's cool that people are thinking about this stuff.
http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://news.joins.com/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/200812/htm_2008120302420630003010-002.JPG&imgrefurl=http://article.joins.com/article/article.asp%3FTotal_ID%3D3402037&usg=__CMO-psMsxzn50S83jqu0QytqzLA=&h=515&w=540&sz=104&hl=en&start=10&um=1&tbnid=nbooVOvei5vUqM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=132&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%25EC%25A1%25B0%25EA%25B0%2590%25EB%258F%2584%2B%25EC%2584%259C%25EC%259A%25B8%2B%25EC%259E%2590%25EC%25A0%2584%25EA%25B1%25B0%2B%25EB%258F%2584%25EB%25A1%259C%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1 |
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ernie
Joined: 05 Aug 2006
Location: asdfghjk
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| what i don't understand is how a high rise apartment can be built in 5 months, yet it takes 5 YEARS to build less than 100km of what are, in essence, sidewalks. a good idea, but come on - balli balli! |
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nosmallplans
Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Location: noksapyeong
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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meh @ bike paths. nearly all the road-side paths i've seen in seoul are covered in parked cars.
besides... there aren't any scooters to draft or bongos to skitch in the bike lane. |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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| nosmallplans wrote: |
meh @ bike paths. nearly all the road-side paths i've seen in seoul are covered in parked cars.
besides... there aren't any scooters to draft or bongos to skitch in the bike lane. |
I don't find them too blocked, but I'm always bemused to see big ugly SUVs parked up on the bikepath while the drivers are at church. What very caring, socially responsible Christians they are. ** No matter how hard I try I always have great trouble getting my bike around these vehicles. Ooops, scratch.
** Please note that this is not an effort to slag off Christians in general - I've met some very open-minded, liberal and socially conscious Christians in Korea, but sadly they seem to be a small minority. |
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