Taipei road upgrade aims to be model for pedestrian safety
台北道路改善計畫為成為行人安全的典範
| Shida Road improvement will 'cut down on wasted space,' councilor says
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A plan to improve Taipei’s Shida Road could become a model for fixing Taiwan’s many haphazard road designs, according to one city councilor. Vincent Chao (趙怡翔) is a member of the Taipei City Council for Daan District, and told Taiwan News about an improvement plan for the section of mixed residential and commerical road near Shida Night Market. “What we want to do is cut down on wasted space,” he said. Vehicles enjoy a total width of 5.9 meters on some parts of Shida Road, while some of the sidewalks are too narrow for two people to comfortably walk past one another. On the day Taiwan News visited with Chao, many cars were parked illegally, sidewalks were covered with parked scooters, and schoolchildren walked on the road. Chao is part of a team of councilors working on the road improvement plan that seeks to increase sidewalk width, stop people parking scooters on sidewalks, and create more parking overall. The project will upgrade 1.2 kilometers of sidewalks, vehicle lanes, and drainage systems. When complete, there will be an additional 2 meters of sidewalk width along most of the road, parking will be cut into the sidewalk where needed (instead of being on the roadway itself), and the accessability of pedestrian crossings will be improved. Most of this will be acheived by narrowing the vehicle lanes, which Chao said are needlessley wide. The ultimate goal is to better use the road’s existing space to increase safety for all road users, Chao said - especially for pedestrians. Transport ministry statistics show 380 pedestrians died and over 17,200 were injured on Taiwan's roads in 2023, while there were over 3,000 traffic related deaths overall. To remove parked scooters from underneath covered walkways, 32 more scooter parking spaces will be built, and existing parking will be moved into some of the roadway’s current width. According to the plan, an additional 12 car parks will also be built alongside four more for goods and service vehicles. Dedicated cycle lanes are not part of the plan. Chao said using cutouts in the sidewalk is expected to create a safer space for cyclists and pedestrians. He said this will be achieved by giving cyclists a clear line of sight down the road instead of weaving around parked cars. Chao said that traffic safety problems on some of Taipei’s larger roads had been dealt with in the past, and said now the smaller mixed residential and commercial roads need attention. He said his goal in Taipei City is to create improvements that other local leaders can look to as model cases. “If we are able to do Shida Road very nicely, which we will, I think that is going to create an impetus for others to look at what we have done here and to replicate it,” he said. Taipei's poor road designs are partly due to the city's history. When many of the older buildings in Taipei were built, developers were not required to provide scooter or car parking spaces. “All of those costs that should have been shouldered by the resident have been passed into the public sphere,” Chao said. The cost for upgrading Shida Road is expected to come in at around NT$40-50 million (US$1.23-1.54 million), and construction is set to begin in June and finish in December. Other roads in his electorate Chao has his eye on for upgrades include Zhinan Road outside National Chengchi University, and some in the Jingmei area. It may come as a surprise to learn that Chao believes the “pedestrian hell” label that has been applied to Taiwan has been a benefit. “I'm all for it,” he said. “I think the more attention there is on it, the more motivation and impetus we have to work across party lines and partisan lines to really fix this problem.” In addition to historical issues with building codes, Chao said the root of the problem for many of Taiwan’s roads is the lack of a compulsory nationwide framework for design - but not for lack of trying. “We actually have a pretty good set of rules at the central government level, governing road widths, sidewalks, and other things,” Chao said “But it’s not compulsory, it’s suggested,” he said. He added that because of this non-compulsory national framework, local councils have never felt the need to develop their own rules: “Basically it has opened the doors for people doing whatever they want.” “This year I have made a formal request that has been passed to the Taipei City Council requiring that by June, they need to have a draft framework for a compulsory road design in Taipei,” Chao said. He said that this is expected to be formalized legally in September, to create Taipei’s first mandatory road design standards. Chao is 18 months into his four year term representing Daan, and said he is prioritizing road safety during this stint in office. “We are making progress,” he said. “Formalizing standard road designs is going to be a huge step forward,” Chao said. “I have asked Taipei City Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) directly and said we need funding, we need personnel, we need regulations.” Chiang’s office declined an invitation to speak with Taiwan News for this article, though in February he held a press conference calling on all of the city’s bureaus and relevant departments to improve traffic safety measures. Chiang said Taipei City would broaden the scope of traffic safety reporting, and increase educational materials for road safety, targeting young people on bikes in particular. |
|
| Jono Thomson, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter | |
| 2024-04-24 |
