From Transit Jam – Hong Kong’s psychopath transport planners strike again. Although only 10% of households have them, private cars account for 47% of visits to the West Kowloon Cultural Hub-Zone District, and taxis another 31%. There is no legal way to access the site by bicycle.
Is this because the main attractions – notably a park with grass you can sit on, plus the new M+ Museum – appeal mainly to the wealthy? Or is it that MTR/bus/pedestrian links are so bad that non-car owners find it too much hassle to bother going?
The article says project managers estimated that only 8% of visitors would use private cars, and provided 2,000 car-parking spaces. Now surrounding roads are clogged with illegal parking.
Why didn’t they design the complex, which is in a core urban area adjacent to major bus routes and MTR lines, as car-free? Because the bureaucrats who decide transport priorities all use private cars and arrange everything to suit themselves and their families – and screw the 90% who take buses or the MTR, or walk.
(For another example of the Alphard-first idiocy, look at the reclamation between IFC and the Central ferry piers, where planners somehow managed to cram half a dozen separate parallel two-or three-lane roads into an area a few hundred yards across. Probably a third of the roads’ surfaces are de-facto, though illegal, car parking space, while pedestrians are crammed onto narrow overhead walkways. The people who designed this are retiring on massive pensions.)
More on the Peng Shuai saga: a sports/politics expert in HKFP explains why the Women’s Tennis Association stands up to Beijing (read this – it’s great); and a summary of the propaganda mess from ASPI.
In case I’m too busy complaining about the cold over the next day or two, a few fun things from Twitter…
Micheal Pettis points out – diplomatically – that China’s GDP is overstated and one day they need to fill in a big hole. (Devaluation of the RMB would be one way.)
Magnificently Bitchy Quote of the Week, from Geremie Barme (via here): ‘The Xi personality cult is a cult without personality’.
A 1963 description of Taiwan nationalism. If you see parallels with Hong Kong post-97, keep them you yourself.
And the Almighty replies to a vaccine skeptic.
https://hongkongfp.com/2021/11/13/seditious-intent-are-mong-kok-triads-an-endangered-species/
Seems Mr Hamlett may have been on to something…
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3156850/hong-kong-police-officers-linked-anti-triad-squad
On HKFP I also note that officials say that terrorists may target the election. Is that another reason to perhaps stay home during that day? I hope that is not what officials are hinting with their worry and fear over the supposed terrorists who might be lurking behind ballot boxes ready to blow us all to smithereens.
Current transport planning doesn’t even serve car users well. I noticed at Tai Mei Tuk yesterday that the direct footpath from the popular restaurants there to the car park just across the street has a row of pillars across it, presumably intended to deter cyclists (bicycle rental is big business around that area) from entering the car park. Unfortunately this also prevents wheelchair users and parents pushing strollers from easy access as well, forcing them to take a longer and more dangerous way around by road.
Because of travel restrictions folk who never dream of spending an afternoon in close proximity to the great unwashed are flocking to WK waterfront. Every time I have been there have been engulfed with exhaust fumes from the long queue for parking.
Having a vehicle allows them to bring along enough equipment to furnish a large subdivided unit.
Have made a complaint to management that the catering is almost all geared towards the more well off. Grass roots option is to queue up at the food trucks and sit on the grass. Not very comfy for elderly and ignores our often wet weather.
What has not been taken into account is that as soon as air travel opens up the Alphards will be heading for more exotic locations and the hoi polloi will become the core market. Perhaps then solutions will be found to the very unfriendly public transport access, particularly how to get from the new bus terminus on Jordan.
Getting a bit long in the tooth and reluctant to walk too far, I had a look at the transport possibilities of getting there. Suffice it to say that I’m not planning a visit in the near future…if ever.
My main whinge though is that it is such a devastatingly-boring looking building – a vertical black slab on a horizontal black slab. With all the money that’s been thrown at it, the least they could have done was make the vertical bit a decent screen for an artistic light show. A civil service + great-& good fuck-up par excellence.
I rarely repost but here we go
https://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2021/11/19/lebron-james-confirms-seeing-missing-chinese-tennis-player-peng/
The Geremie Barme quote did not originate at this source, but his interview on “The Little Red Podcast” is highly entertaining and informative. This podcast, which features the always insightful Louisa Lim, is very much worth your time if you don’t already subscribe. Get it while you still can.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-little-red-podcast/id1136685378
@steve
Thanks for the recommendation! Listening to the newest episode of “The Little Red Podcast” right now, on the CCP’s latest so-called historical resolution.
To note for all those anti-Apple fans, the podcast can be found on Spotify, and probably elsewhere too.
Don’t need Apple or Spotify to access “The Little Red Podcast”:
https://omny.fm/shows/the-little-red-podcast/the-great-reconciler-and-the-end-of-chinese-histor