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Alternate universe: government lobbies cycle groups
I put on a Hong Kong Cycling Alliance hat on Tuesday, along with HKCAll chairman Martin Turner and other cycling groups to meet government and discuss the Tsuen Wan to Tuen Mun cycle path: a section of the New Territories Cycle Track long delayed1 by residents of the fancy tower blocks in Sham Tseng.
It's strange to be on the "right" side of a public engagement. CEDD (the bike-friendly govt department which developed the New Territories Cycle Track as well as the fabulous Mountain Bike Park in Mui Wo) wants to do this project asap and it wants support from the cycle community. They're bribing the Sham Tseng residents with a 20-metre-wide promenade, decked out with all the latest "harbourfront" gizmos (yellow-duck boats and massive "Hollywood sign" letters made out of matt-painted metal etc).
The real reason for wining and dining2 us on the 25th floor of the Tsuen Wan Government Offices was the govt needs need strong support to overcome the Protection of Harbour Ordinance (PHO). CEDD’s plans will require a two-year temporary reclamation and when complete will cast a shadow on a short section (like, a few metres) of the harbour. This shouldn't be a problem – even as we met, the Society for the Protection of the Harbour was holding a press conference to give the cycle project its blessing. I had been (and still am a little) concerned this would be a "thin end of the wedge" for the PHO but those working in this field for much longer say CEDD is genuine and that the PHO was never designed to jinx projects like this.
Some of the points we made to the govt:
1. CEDD seems to think this last section (to be completed in 10 years or so) will "finish" the New Territories Cycle Track. That's a tremendous lack of ambition – a cycle network is never finished! We need it looped up and constantly expanding with connections to the towns and villages around the new path. And, dare I say it, down into Kowloon.
2. The govt designs these paths like sci-fi wormholes. You enter at the Entry Hub, you're whisked along a closed tube (perhaps enjoying the views and "rest areas" along the way) and then you're spat out at the Exit Hub where you return your rental bike and go home. There needs to be more thought on the path as a carriageway, as a route. Speaking as a food delivery rider3, these "wormholes" are very hard to use (and, given the new track would make riding on most of Castle Peak Road illegal, it would still very hard to get around the district by bicycle). Officials took this on board and said they are already thinking about how to connect the buildings, so that's a good sign. They also said they'd discussed with police about which parts of Castle Peak Road would become "no cycling" under the cycle track law4: the path at Sham Tseng will be quite a distance from the road and officials said there's perhaps scope for leniency there. However, this will come down to a Transport Dept and police decision. And I can already picture Transport's response ("All along, we place the highest priority for cycle safety. Under Cap 374G etc etc etc").
3. The usual "dismount" issues - the path needs to be continuous. There's already at least one road crossing with a "dismount" planned into the pre-design stage. CEDD said it IS working to a "no dismount" philosophy, but wouldn't commit to a "zero dismount" as in many other places around the world. The point's been made, we'll keep the pressure on this as design stages approach.
4. Signage and route naming: from the Hong Kong Cycling Association delegate, we need better signposts and even perhaps route numbers like in London. CEDD's response was, we have an app, we have online tools, we have open data.... all of us there pressed the point that nothing beats a simple signpost pointing "this way to Fanling". Sadly it seems CEDD is faffing a bit on this point and says signposting is Transport Department's bailiwick. Which explains the absolutely piss-poor signage on the whole existing network. Do better!
5. In 10 years, when this is finished, e-bikes perhaps will be common. Will there be charging facilities at the "hubs"? CEDD said "we don't rule this out". But their facial expressions and general discomfort said "if you ever think these will be legal think again, buster".
6. A lot of other good discussion: keeping the path close to the sea and whether 4 metres is wide enough (probably not if it's a popular tourist stretch). And, as stressed many times by HKCAll’s chairman Martin Turner, “using what’s there” rather than building a “special place” for cycling.
The Public Engagement continues until December, everyone is welcome to take part.
Green minibus data complete
All Hong Kong’s 551 green minibus routes are now fitted with real-time tracking systems. Hardly a delight to use through the government app, I’d rather be dropped on the far side of the Moon with nothing but a Raspberry Pi and a tinfoil hat to find my way home than be forced to ever use HKeMobility, but the data is open source and 3rd party apps like Moovit and Google can use it (Google, of course, doesn’t even really know which side of the road we drive on here and still has no cycling directions, but that’s another story). Will be following up the data issues here in the coming weeks, particularly as one of our favourite data researchers is coming back to Hong Kong at the end of the month!
Transit Jam headlines
30 E-MOBILITY BLAZES IN LAST FEW YEARS – BUT GOVT CLUELESS HOW MANY DEVICES IMPORTED TO HONG KONG
1,000 PEDS & CYCLISTS SUMMONSED LAST MONTH AS POLICE CRACKDOWN CONTINUES
POLICE DROP “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY”, DOJ REFUSES TO COMMENT
Hong Kong road safety
Weekly crash stats: Monday 24 Oct to Sunday 30 Oct, 2022
Traffic crashes: 829
Traffic crashes with injury: 218
Weekly average crashes with injury: 274 (2022 to end Sep)
Dashcam of the Week
Strong competition as usual: my Twitter notifications are blowing up with the Tesla driving into a lamppost. To be clear there’s no evidence the car was on any kind of autopilot when this happened. But few people can agree whether Full Self Driving is even available in Hong Kong. The language and product names are deliberately vague - “FSD” is actually available in Hong Kong (according to Tesla’s website) but not “FSD Beta”, so the FSD is limited to cruise control and staying in lane, plus auto-parking (which is technically illegal in HK). Does that mean it can’t actually be used on an urban street to go around a corner? Probably, given there’s no Instagram reels of people doing this, which there would be if they could. Legally, it can only be used on a road over 70kph limit and with central divider, as the govt has asked Tesla to remind its customers. Anyway, staying out of that hot mess: whether it was man or machine driving the car into a traffic light, it’s a pretty poor performance.
Indeed, check out this 2011 proposal from CEDD and Arup, backed by cycle groups but blocked by residents with noise complaints. Not much has changed in the “new” proposal, other than skirting on the inside rather than the outside of the Honi Villa, the promenade gift to Sham Tseng residents and using the highway route at Tai Lam Chung instead of following Castle Peak Road across the river. The route also had more seperation from the road in places. It’s taken 11 years to hammer out those few points of contention with still no agreement from residents.
There was, of course, no wine or dine, or even water, given sensitivies to Prevention of Bribery Ordinance these days…
I have not actually delivered any food as a Food Panda rider since my youngest baby was born 20 months ago. This does not stop me claiming to be a food delivery rider when the need arises and even, last year, going on strike in solidarity with the brothers.
Under Hong Kong law, where a part of a road is “set aside” for bicycles, bikes aren’t allowed on that road. Whether a track portion near Castle Peak Road means that track portion is a subset of Castle Peak Road remains to be seen.