OBSERVATION: Hong Kong’s fleet of taxis are the only form of public transportation where Octopus cards are NOT accepted in what is quickly becoming a cashless society.
SOLUTION: Provide incentives for all taxis to be equipped with Octopus readers and credit card contactless readers; usage fees could be waived or subsidized to provide a seamless payment system for tourists and commuters across the city.
What if taxis were equipped with Octopus card readers? What if they could accept credit cards?
Hong Kong’s trams, buses, minibuses, ferries, MTR, Light Rail, Peak Tram, and virtually all other methods of public transport systems are equipped with Octopus Card readers which offer a seamless method of cashless travel across the city — with the glaring exception of the city’s taxis.
Is it really so difficult to install Octopus readers throughout the city’s beleaguered taxi fleet in an otherwise efficient city? Recurring objections from taxi drivers have typically included complaints about fees and delays in payment associated with such systems. Provided that fees could be subsidized or perhaps waived, how many extra trips per day could a driver make in the time wasted for fumbling for change and arguing about whether or not to accept HK$500. or HK$1,000 banknotes throughout a driver’s day?
As a comparison, Singapore’s taxi fleet is equipped with credit card readers allowing them to accept several types of credit cards, despite a 10% surcharge — in addition to cash.
OBSERVATION: Hong Kong has a shocking lack of public toilets relative to its urban density. The few toilets that are provided are often in a grave state of disrepair, but most of the time, the question on everyone’s mind is … when you gotta go, where do you go?
SOLUTION: Upgrade existing dilapidated public toilets and provide new toilets at strategic street level locations that are easily accessible and identifiable through a new graphic signage system and linked with smartphone apps.
Many of Hong Kong’s public toilets are in a state of disrepair and lack vandal-resistant, durable materials.Some public washrooms are only accessible by a flight of stairs — if you’re in a wheelchair, you’re literally up s**t creek!
Hong Kong’s public toilets are often few and far between, and while these are generally under the purview of Hong Kong’s Food & Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), the hygienic condition of these facilities is often appalling, and some are completely inaccessible to the elderly or those with disabilities. The directional signage for these toilets is often antiquated or missing, with text in English and Chinese only.
In the more developed urban areas of Hong Kong, people have come to rely upon nearby shopping centers which have toilets sequestered away on upper floors — reserved for tenants and customers — and many are locked and require key access to prevent members of the public from stealing valuable rolls of toilet paper! Since most public transport facilities like the MTR lack public toilets, the location of toilets within close proximity are often a carefully guarded secret — a nightmarish scenario for first-time visitors to the city. Ideally, members of the public should have DIRECT access to public toilets, without needing to enter private premises to “do their business.”
It is any wonder that visitors’ children end up urinating in trash bins, and baby nappies are changed in dark corners of public areas, as passersby howl in protest?
IMAGINE breathing a sigh of relief and your bladder relaxing as a new era of public toilets is ushered in! While the FEHD is making slow progress, here are some ideas:
Provide an urgent comprehensive upgrade to the city’s public toilets, relative to fixtures, finishes, lighting, durability, vandal-resistance, accessibility and ventilation.
Ensure all transportation interchanges (bus terminals, MTR stations, etc.) are equipped with public toilets.
Provide at least one unisex disabled / family toilet at each public toilet location equipped with a flip-down diaper-changing table.
Strive to have public toilets located within a 500 m walk of most public areas.
Commission a study and provide new public toilets at key hotspots.
Provide a new universal graphic signage / wayfinding system throughout the city that clearly identifies routes to toilets. Consider colorful pictograms that do not rely on English or Chinese script, which can be universally comprehended by visitors from any country.
Develop a smartphone app that automatically identifies the location of public toilets relative to one’s location, provides real-time status reports whether the toilet is closed for cleaning or renovation, and provides a feedback mechanism for the public to rate toilets and provide helpful suggestions to the FEHD and their cleaning contractors.
OBSERVATION: Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents live in appalling conditions; affordable housing is not being constructed quickly enough to keep up with demand.
SOLUTION: Create floating transitional residential communities in select protected waterways along Hong Kong’s coast to address Hong Kong’s housing crisis.
EMERGENCY ACCOMMODATION:
Could this system of rapidly-deployable accommodation be set up in times of emergency, where quarantine camps or emergency housing is required following unprecedented outbreaks of disease or other natural disaster?
Relative to functioning as a scalable quarantine facility for unexpected events like the COVID-19 virus of 2020, these floating communities could be relatively self-sufficient, become relatively isolated from populated areas and contain emergency field hospitals / clinics within each set of barges — in addition to providing recovering patients with plenty of fresh air.
OBSERVATION: Hong Kong’s often disappointing public spaces are sometimes bordered by mundane elements of the built environment that further demoralize residents who live there.
SOLUTION: Provide a network of public green walls to beautify the built environment, enhance residential communities, increase property values, assist in stormwater management, and purify the air.
This large retaining wall along Taikoo Shing Road faces a popular park fronting One Island East and epitomizes the concept of a “concrete jungle”.Could this utilitarian retaining wall become a public green wall to beautify Taikoo Shing and potentially assist in stormwater management from the retaining wall’s weepholes? Could the plants help purify the air along this busy road?
OBSERVATION: Many Hong Kong drivers — most notably taxi drivers — have a propensity for sailing through marked pedestrian crossings at high speeds, completely ignoring pedestrian safety.
SOLUTION: As in many other global cities, install speed bumps or provide new raised pedestrian crossings as traffic calming measures to force vehicles to slow down.
How many times have you almost been mowed over while crossing the street at a designated “zebra” crossing with flashing lights?
