A “walking festival” was held in Taipei yesterday by a road safety advocacy group to urge the government to pay greater attention to pedestrian rights, with its chairperson calling Taiwan a “living hell for pedestrians” and a “traffic hell.”
The two-and-a-half-hour event began at Beimen Plaza near Taipei Main Station. Participants marched through nearby streets as members of Vision Zero Taiwan, the organizer, and road safety experts examined the area’s traffic planning and road design.
Road safety “still has a lot of room for improvement,” Vision Zero chairperson Y.C. Wu (吳宜蒨) said, adding that goal was to push the government to take the issue seriously.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Following a march on road safety in 2023, which drew tens of thousands of participants, it is evident that some local governments have paid more attention to the issue, Wu said, citing the release of the Taipei City Road Design Manual last month as an example.
“I hope other city and county governments will follow suit,” she said, adding that local governments tend to adopt their own approaches to road safety based on local conditions, with the implementation of pedestrian safety infrastructure often hindered by opposition from some people, due to the inconvenience it might cause.
Asked if Taiwan is still a “living hell for pedestrians,” as CNN said in an article in 2022, Wu said: “More or less.”
The more concrete description would be a “traffic hell,” Wu added.
“It is not just pedestrians — many road users, including drivers and motorcyclists, also get injured due to poor road design,” Wu said.
Viga Huang, one of the 50 event participants, said he became interested in road safety after a few accidents made him realize how Taiwan fails at handling the issue compared with other countries.
Taiwan’s road planning is centered around cars, which makes pedestrians “the vulnerable group” when navigating the streets, he said.
European countries have more pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, as they promote public transportation and walking over private car use, he added.
According to official data, 2,675 people, including 332 pedestrians, died in traffic accidents from January to November last year in Taiwan, out of a population of 23.4 million.
In comparison, data from the Hong Kong Police Force showed that the Chinese city — home to about 7.5 million people, roughly one-third of Taiwan’s population — recorded 96 traffic-related deaths in 2023, including 62 pedestrian fatalities.
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