OBSERVATION: Water crossings across Hong Kong’s busy Victoria Harbour are primarily restricted to a handful of ferry piers, while lateral travel along the coastline is limited to land-based public transportation options.
SOLUTION: Could a new water taxi system be provided along the length of both sides of Victoria Harbour to provide more flexible water transportation options?
Travel along the edges of Victoria Harbour is largely limited to land-based public transportation options; however, could Hong Kong emulate Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River water taxi system, which provides convenient water transport for millions?
Could a water taxi system along the edge of Victoria Harbour provide convenient transport options? Imagine tourists arriving at Kai Tak Cruise terminal traveling to a seafood dinner in Lei King Wan in just a few short hops by water taxi.
If Hong Kong Island ‘s waterfront were to be improved with a continuous pedestrian promenade, this promenade could be punctuated by water taxi stops at various intervals to provide efficient lateral transport along the coastline without reliance on land-based transportation systems. Could these relatively small watercraft be electric-powered and non-polluting to reduce the net amount of pollution ordinarily associated with vehicular public transportation?
Select cross-harbour water taxis could also supplement the widely-used current Star Ferry routes by running between less frequented piers.
OBSERVATION: Hong Kong’s historic trams continue to ply the north coast of Hong Kong island and provide an affordable and scenic public transportation option, while Kowloon has fewer options.
SOLUTION: Could a new tram system be created in Kowloon linking Tsim Sha Tsui with districts further to the north?
Could trams be provided in Kowloon?
Hong Kong Island’s beloved and iconic trams have been in operation since 1904 and are currently operated by Hong Kong Tramways Limited. Could a new tram network be created to provide an affordable high-density transport option through some of Kowloon’s most populous neighborhoods and reduce vehicular traffic?
Pending a feasibility study, such a tram line might mirror the alignment of the MTR line beneath Nathan Road and Cheung Sha Wan Road. A southern terminus of a new tram line might be provided at the Star Ferry in Tsim Sha Tsui, with services extending to Jordan, Yau Ma Tei, Mongkok, Prince Edward, Sham Shui Po, Cheung Sha Wan, and Lai Chi Kok, with a terminus / depot in Mei Foo.
OBSERVATION: Sai Kung, located in Hong Kong’s New Territories, is plagued with very limited access from the urban areas, yet is equipped with a public pier.
SOLUTION: Provide a new ferry service between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon to Sai Kung to improve access for residents and visitors.
Sai Kung is often a favorite weekend destination for tourists and residents.
Access to Sai Kung from Hong Kong’s urban areas is primarily by road, and getting to this picturesque seaside community — especially during busy weekends — is often a complete nightmare for both residents and visitors alike.
Sai Kung is equipped with a public pier that currently accommodates a wide variety of Kaitos, sampans, speedboats, ferries and junks that provide daytrips to nearby islands, the Hong Kong Geopark and surrounding areas. While the concept of providing regular ferry services linking Sai Kung to the more populous urban areas has been discussed in the past, the financial viability of operating such a regular ferry service has often been cited as problematic.
Could the Government provide subsidies to a private operator — at least during weekends — to provide an alternative transportation option to and from Sai Kung that is not reliant on road access?
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: 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?
OBSERVATION: The Hong Kong MTR and other public facilities have deafening prerecorded audio messages urging passengers to hold the handrail as they ride — which typically fall on deaf ears in one of the world’s noisiest cities.
SOLUTION: Provide new brightly-colored yellow rubber handrails with hand pictograms to provide subliminal visual cues for passengers to hold on — young children are very likely to place their own hand directly upon the image of the hand, and might help train them to hold on as they ride.
Why not do a trial run of pictogram escalator hand rails and determine if these in fact result in an increase of the number of passengers who grip the handrails as they ride? It’s worth a try!
Could new escalator handrails be provided which improve passenger safety? Could these same handrails be of a new high-tech material that is not only anti-microbial, but might even actively cleanse one’s hands and fingertips as they grip, improving hygiene levels across the city?
OBSERVATION: As Hong Kong moves ever closer to becoming a cashless society, is there truly a need for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to keep producing the smallest denomination 10, 20, and 50 cent coins relative to the cost and environmental impact of actually minting new coins?
SOLUTION: Provide coin conversion machines at MTR stations that collect and recycle coins, provide instant credit on Octopus cards or digital payment platforms, and minimize new coin production.
Are these low value coins even worth the cost of manufacturing them?
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has operated two rarely-seen roving coin collection vehicles since 2014 that converts unused coins into cash or stored value card credits to reduce the demand for minting new coins. However, how many busy Hong Kong residents have actually ever seen these vehicles or availed themselves of their services?
The HKMA’s roving “coinmobile” — a very quick and efficient operation to cash in buckets of old coins — but only when you can find one.
When these “coinmobiles” do appear in one’s neighborhood, the process is relatively quick and efficient. There is a maximum weight of coins that can be cashed in during a visit, which need to be free of foreign matter. After transferring your haul into a plastic tray, one then steps up into the vehicle where an attendant dumps the coins into a spinning rotary sorter — any stray Macau Patacas are spit out in the rejection slot, and a voucher is printed out which can be redeemed at a small cubicle in the rear of the vehicle. Sadly, these vehicles are not wheelchair accessible.
As an alternative to the elusive HKMA coin collection vehicles, banks present another option for cashing in coins. However, some greedy banks often charge a bogus “handling fee” for cashing large amounts of coins into banknotes.
Could the coin recycling process be dramatically accelerated, and become more convenient and accessible for Hong Kong’s busy populace by installing automatic coin recycling machines at all MTR stations which could automatically credit one’s Octopus card immediately after collection? And could this include an option to automatically top-up an individual’s digital payment account, like AliPay and others from such MTR-based kiosks?
If provided, the HKMA’s recycling targets might be met in a fraction of the time, the environmental impacts of minting new coins minimized, and space-starved residents could rid their junk drawers of nonsensical coins on a daily basis as they commute to work on one of the most well-used public transport systems in the city.
OBSERVATION: Hong Kong’s MTR is one of the highest-rated public transportation systems in the world; however, at least 75% of the system’s stations lack public toilets which are an expected feature in international transit systems.
SOLUTION: While newer MTR stations have been thoughtfully designed to include public toilets, older stations need to be retrofitted with some form of public toilet solution in order to provide consistency throughout the entire network. When you gotta go, you gotta go!
Public toilets for commuters at Sheung Wan MTR Station — a much appreciated amenity for passengers, which is a rarity throughout the network.
The Hong Kong MTR system currently has 91 stations and 68 Light Rail stops across ten main commuter lines throughout Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. While most were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, today just over 20 stations (primarily interchange stations) have been retrofitted with public toilets — a scant 25% of total MTR stations.
The MTR has cited various technical challenges associated with retrofitting existing stations with new toilets, which include limitations in existing sewerage capacities, the risks of overlapping plumbing with high voltage electrical systems, challenges in providing sufficient ventilation, among other factors. However, many of these obstacles are based on installing a traditional toilet system … maybe it’s time to think outside of the box?
IDEA: Could there be a system of unisex odorless waterless composting toilets that could be easily installed in each station? Could these be housed within vandal-resistant permanent enclosures that would have minimal impact on the station’s infrastructure?
Could a paid competition attract Hong Kong’s universities and product designers to invent a high-capacity composting toilet system that would cater to the masses, minimize water use, use composting materials derived from daily grounds keeping activities (which would otherwise wind up in a landfill) in order to provide a sanitary solution for a dense urban environment like Hong Kong?
OBSERVATION: Hong Kong has one of the most spectacular harbourfronts in the world … yet, many areas are largely inaccessible by pedestrians due to poor urban planning. The waterfront promenades that do exist are fragmented and isolated.
SOLUTION: Provide a continuous 25-km waterfront pedestrian and bicycle path network along the northern edge of Hong Kong Island stretching from Aberdeen to Chai Wan.
Pedestrianized harbourfront areas along the north coast of Hong Kong Island are fragmented and few in number …
Could an ambitious new waterfront promenade be created? Benefits of a continuous waterfront promenade for Hong Kong residents would include:
Increased well-being through a connection with water
Improved air quality for pedestrians at waterfront areas
A vehicle-free pedestrianized area that allows residents the option to safely commute between home and work by riding a bicycle or walking
Increased levels of fitness and healthy lifestyle choices
Intermittent pedestrian links to existing inland tram and MTR stops that already mirror the existing coastline
Existing waterfront promenades could be leveraged and provided with linkages at each end to form a continuous network
Opportunities for a new waterfront taxi network — not unlike Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River — for short hops between waterfront stops
Creation of intermodal transportation hubs linking ferries, water taxis, roadways, bicycle / walking paths, MTR and trams
An early 2006 concept submitted to the HKSAR Government for redeveloping the Central Waterfront into a pedestrianized zone prior to the Tamar Government Headquarters, some of which has partially been implemented years later. Illustration (c) 2006 Thomas Schmidt – All rights reserved
Hong Kong based architect Thomas Schmidt asks: WHAT IF one could walk or bike unfettered along a 25-km stretch of the northern coastline of Hong Kong Island? WHAT IF you could safely ride a bicycle — free from traffic — along dedicated bike lanes from Aberdeen to Chai Wan in just over an hour?
How would all of our lives change for the better?
Could there be pedestrian-friendly access from the nearby Wong Chuk Hang MTR station to the starting point of a new 25-km continuous waterfront promenade? Could the fishing and boating industry co-exist with new public access to the waterfront in this area? What if Waterfall Park enjoyed more public accessibility? Would the residents of Bel-Air like an option to walk or bike to work in Central or beyond, instead of being forced to rely upon motorized transport? Imagine a Cyberport that is actually accessible as it was originally intended years ago … Could there even be a new ferry terminal that puts the “port” back into Cyberport? Would HKU students enjoy a healthy option of being able walk or bike to sports practice? What if Pokfulam was much more accessible during heavy traffic through a new pedestrian and bicycle path along the scenic coastline, provided it was executed in a sensitive manner? Could this dead end of Kennedy Town be re-activated, and “temporary” recreation areas become permanent? Could new water taxis serve this evolving area? Could Belcher Bay Park could be extended all the way to the water’s edge to provide a gathering area for residents of Kennedy Town and Shek Tong Tsui? Could the terminus of the historic Hong Kong Tram at Whitty Street be linked to a new promenade connecting different districts? Could a resident ride a bicycle from Wanchai and then catch a bus to Kowloon through the Western Harbour Tunnel? What if there were a waterfront link between the popular Macau Ferry Terminal and the existing promenade along the Central Ferry Piers? Could the existing Central / Tamar Park waterfront be a critical link in a long chain of “people places” along the northern coast of Hong Kong Island … instead of an isolated promenade?What if Golden Bauhinia Square was actually accessible by pedestrians? What if Hong Kong Convention Center delegates could walk or bike to nearby hotels along one of the world’s best waterfronts? Could the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club become more accessible and help this area thrive as a true water sports center? Could the redevelopment of the former Excelsior Hotel provide new pedestrian links from the Causeway Bay MTR station to the venerable Noonday Gun and a new waterfront promenade? Could the upcoming redevelopment of the Oil Street site include a green lung for choking Fortress Hill and provide a link to a new waterfront park? Could the existing ferry terminals and bus stations be redeveloped into a multi-modal travel hub that ties into a pedestrian and biking promenade beneath the Island Eastern Corridor? Why allocate parking along prime waterfront areas when these areas could be developed into parks for the people? Imagine if the various fragments of successful existing waterfront promenades could be integrated into a continuous network along the entire coastline.Could the existing Sai Wan Ho Harbour Front Park fronting Soho East be joined to the existing Aldrich Bay promenade? What if the little-visited Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence had convenient pedestrian / bicycle access from the rest of the island? What if Heng Fa Chuen residents could bicycle to work in Central in just half an hour? Chai Wan’s aging industrial area is ripe for redevelopment and adaptive reuse — could this unique cargo basin area become a vibrant waterfront area like Nyhavn in Copenhagen, Denmark someday? What if Siu Sai Wan and the relatively remote Island Resort were better connected with the rest of Hong Kong?
Besides the many logistics, feasibility studies, and government approvals required for such an integrated network, why can’t Hong Kong begin to implement an ambitious plan to celebrate one of the most famous waterfronts in the world?
OBSERVATION: Island East on Hong Kong Island has some outstanding pedestrianized zones, yet they are fragmented and disconnected — and most are devoid of al fresco dining due to much-criticized government regulations.
SOLUTION: Provide a continuous park-like pedestrianized zone linking the Quarry Bay and Tai Koo MTR Stations, emphasizing al fresco dining and food culture.
What if the excellent pedestrianized areas of Taikoo Shing and neighboring Island East were interconnected? What if a food-based pedestrian experience could be created stretching between the Quarry Bay and Taikoo MTR stations?
July 2019 proposal submitted to Swire Development to improve the pedestrian experience in the One Island East area. The proposal has yet to be acknowledged.
