Design
How to Make One of Hong Kong's Busiest Streets Car-Free
A coalition is bringing back a 15-year-old proposal to make part of downtown green, with plans to turn it into a playground or urban forest.
It didn’t surprise Simon Ng that Hong Kong’s Town Planning Board overwhelmingly rejected a proposal last week to scrap part of Hong Kong’s historic tramway as a way to ease congestion. The outpouring of support for the 111-year-old streetcars, however, was unexpected.
The backlash to the proposal did more than put the city’s public transit in the spotlight, says Ng, chief research officer at the Hong Kong public policy think tank Civic Exchange.* It also rekindled interest in a nearly 15-year-old plan to make one of Hong Kong’s busiest stretches of road pedestrian friendly and car free.