But the space inefficiency of a car-oriented transportation system created enormous traffic congestion, and by the early 1970s, with 6 million residents, Seoul began construction on its first Metropolitan Subway line. In the 1960s, during the earlier part of this growth, city leaders built out an extensive automotive infrastructure network, including wide roads and urban freeways that bisected the city. Today, slowing migration and suburban growth in Gyeongi Province has reduced Seoul’s population to about 10 million inhabitants – still a huge city by any standard. Seoul reached peak size of almost 11 million around 1990.
By 1965, it had 3.8 million, which grew to 6.9 million within ten years. In 1952, during the Korean War, Seoul had 700,000 residents. These phases corresponded to the city leaders’ shifting responses to the city’s mind-boggling population growth. Seoul’s transportation system developed in phases after World War II, with city leaders first prioritizing cars, then mass transit, then – to a lesser extent – cycling and micromobility. If car-choked cities like Seoul do not address land use, road pricing, and the allocation of street space, gleaming trains and buses are likely to solve only half of the problem. Excellent transit can coax people out of cars, but wide streets and highways can coax them back in.
If we treat Seoul as an instructive example, maybe not.
#SURFACE TRANSPORTATION DISPATCH FREE#
Can building world-class public transit free cities from car dominance? With congestion reaching crisis proportions and transportation generating about a quarter of global carbon emissions, cities are looking for ways to move people from cars to more efficient modes. It’s a city with superlative mass transit, yet also dominated by private cars. On the other, Seoul is-according to its own mayor-" addicted to cars.” It has a gargantuan road and highway network and suffers from heavy traffic congestion, poor air quality, and a growing proportion of single-occupant car commuters. A planner with Regional Plan Association in New York has called the Metro "quite simply the best I have ever seen." Its metro stands on par with any system, and a recent McKinsey report showed Seoul’s public transit efficiency among the top three global cities surveyed. On one hand, the city boasts world-class public transit. It took only moments to notice the stark contradictions of Seoul’s transportation system. While the purpose of the visit was to learn about Korea's politics and society, it also provided a remarkable opportunity to experience transportation in Korea’s largest city, renowned for its gleaming Metro and the Cheonggye Freeway removal.
In October, I visited Seoul with a delegation of Chicago Council Emerging Leaders on a Korea Foundation-funded trip led by Karl Friedhoff, the Council's Korea specialist.
0 kommentar(er)
