One-Month Street Closure at Ecomobility Festival

What sets the biennial EcoMobility World Festival apart from other carfree events around the world is its one month-long demonstration in a neighbourhood. This simple but powerful idea enables people to truly experience a lifestyle of traveling only with walking, cycling, wheeling and public transport in a real urban setting, and for an extended period.

After Suwon and Johannesburg, the City of Kaohsiung in Taiwan took up the challenge to embrace ecomobility this year. For the entire month of October, the streets of Kaohsiung’s historic Hamasen neighbourhood was transformed into a dedicated space for ecomobile modes of transport.

Within close proximity to the ports and the railways, Hamasen was once Kaohsiung’s centre for politics, fishery and economy where industrialisation and urbanisation began. It was also the city’s first modern urban district with proper streets, tap water supply and electric power systems. But as the city expanded and developed, Hamasen lost some of its former prominence.

Home to over 3,000 residents, the 0.14 km2 demonstration area is characterised by largely low and medium-rise apartment buildings that often host small businesses on the ground floor. Before the days of motorisation, the relatively human-scaled streetscape would have been enjoyable for walking and cycling. Today, the narrow road space is shared by nearly 800 cars and more than 3,000 motorcycles that are registered in the area.

For several years, Kaohsiung, a former industrial city, has been working on transforming its economy and improving the urban environment. While putting green and sustainable mobility at the core of the city’s future development strategy is in line with this vision, shifting from business-as-usual to ecomobility was not an easy decision for Hamasen’s residents and businesses.

During the two years leading up to the festival, city officials of Kaohsiung across 22 different government agencies embarked on a series of preparation works in three key areas:

1. Promoting multi-modal alternatives.

   The city prioritised active mobility by creating designated pedestrian and biking lanes within the demonstration area. Free bikes of different sizes and types were made available for use during the festival period. Car-sharing and motorbikesharing stations were also set up to acquaint residents with the idea of sharing rather than owning. In addition to the existing bus and mass rapid transit (MRT) services, the first phase of a new tram line was recently completed to serve the area, and is free for use till the end of 2017. As motorbikes made up more than 60% of the total modal share, residents were eventually allowed to use them in and around the demonstration area but incentives were given to encourage upgrading to the fully electric models or ones that pollute less.

2. Upgrading the physical environment. To make it conducive for pedestrians and other ecomoblity users to move around, the city invested in various upgrading projects in consultation with the residents. These include burying the overhead cables, levelling the covered walkways and sprucing up previously abandoned land into community parks.

3. Changing mindsets. Numerous dialogue sessions with the local community were organised to understand people’s needs, concerns and garner ground-up support. “The initial engagement was not easy,” confessed Jeff Chen who heads Kaohsiung’s Transportation Bureau. As trust was built, real conversations started to take place. Hundreds of resident “ambassadors” also played a crucial part in spreading the message of ecomobility and facilitating regular exchange of ideas and feedbacks. Since December 2016, trial road-closure events spiced up by lively open air markets took place every two months to give residents a taste of what ecomobility could mean for their neighbourhood. The markets have been so successful that they are likely to continue even after the festival.

On the night before the festival’s opening, Jeff Chen, Kaohsiung’s transport Director General took another walk around Hamasen. He was anxious to see if the residents had responded to a call to make use of the alternative parking areas outside the neighbourhood during the festival period.

For the first time in many years, Hamasen’s streets were free of cars, standing ready for the celebration. “In a way, Hamasen symbolises our vision for a new Kaohsiung,” he said.