Late last month, Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) released an emotional post on Facebook in which he described how he wanted to make sure all the sidewalk arcades were level when he first took office several years ago because the dangerous pedestrian environment was causing a lot of accidents and injuries.
He said that he later changed his mind and instead decided to begin by pushing for a pedestrian-friendly "walkable city" plan and the construction of safer sidewalks, before eventually finally implementing a plan to begin leveling out the sidewalk arcades this year.
Since the 2010s, a growing number of British, Japanese and US cities have announced pedestrian or walkable city plans. Today, Hsinchu City is taking the lead among Taiwanese cities by pledging to become a pedestrian-friendly city. Lin’s praiseworthy policy is in line with the trend in the world’s developed countries.
However, Hsinchu City’s pedestrian-friendly city plan is a plan in name only: It is a collection of several construction projects. A real plan should include a written public document that clearly specifies the plan’s origin, vision, objectives, implementation measures and evaluation criteria. Such a document would make it easier for the Hsinchu City Government to communicate with people, and for top city government officials, the Hsinchu City Council and all sectors of society to monitor the progress of the plan.
The city really should produce such a document, but the question perhaps is what it should look like. Here are three suggestions:
First, the city government should use “safety for all” and “equity for all” as policy slogans as it moves toward turning Hsinchu into a pedestrian-friendly city, as that would help maximize the persuasive power of the policy and minimize any opposition.
Next, in addition to several infrastructure projects that have already been completed or are still under construction, the city should make use of online surveys to gather the opinions of Hsinchu residents, as that would help the city government find out what pedestrians need and what suggestions they might have.
Finally, authorities should use police accident data to find the “hotspots” where traffic accidents involving pedestrians happen more frequently, as that would help them determine which spots should be prioritized as part of construction projects.
Lin ended his Facebook post saying: “We are all pedestrians when we get out of our cars.”
Lin’s term in office is set to end in 2022. Hopefully the mayor will use his deeply felt human-oriented traffic ideals to lead his administration in proposing an official written document for a pedestrian-friendly city plan before he leaves office, as that would help ensure policy continuity.
Another advantage of creating such a document is that it could be used as a template by other cities that also want to improve their pedestrian environment.
Doing so would not only be beneficial to Hsinchu City, it would also have a long-term impact, as it would make it easier for other cities around the nation to push for similar plans to improve the pedestrian environment.
Chiu Bing-yu is a doctoral student in urban planning.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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