Korea Beat

Oh good, that means more high heels in Seoul

January 2nd, 2008 · Transportation and Urban Design · 6 comments

You might have noticed here and there that pedestrian roads are being created and older ones are improving, and it’s a part of a plan to redo all 1510 km of the city’s pathways by 2017.

Original article here

Before on the left, after on the right

Uncomfortable pedestrian paths in Seoul with their wide cracks that catch high heels or slanting angles are going through widescale remodelling.

On the 17th of December 2007 Seoul announced its ’10-year Seoul street renaissance plan’, revealing that they would redo all 1510 km of the city’s pathways in stages, by the year 2017.

The first stage, beginning from 2008 and extending to 2010 will have a total of 502.6 billion won injected, remodelling 453km of pathways within the city’s jurisdiction, for a total of 30% of the total.

Roads that fall under the plan are:

-The central roads in the 4 Daemunan area (18 roads including Changgyeonggung-no for a total of 55 km)

-Main roads for autonomous districts (Cheonhodae-ro, Hanyang University road etc. for a total of 325 km)

-Design Seoul Geori (Daehakno, Dongsomun-ru, 25 km)

-Other areas (45 km)

There is not nearly enough consideration of citizens for streets in Seoul in their construction, design and management.

Women’s heels easily slip through the wide cracks of the streets, and here are there you can see damaged blocks. If you’re not looking where you’re going when you walk you can even get your legs caught on manholes that are sticking out. You can also easily find other obstacles that make things difficult for pedestrians like trees on the street, electric poles and street vendors.

In order to take care of these roads, the city laid out five guidelines for remodelling of the roads: evenness, slope, cracks, lowering curbs, and construction methods.

The city plans to level out ugly unlevel areas where water is likely to collect. Roads with steep inclines that make it hard for the elderly and the handicappes are to be redone to make it safe to walk.

The city also will remove cracks between blocks, and will change jutting manholes to make them the same level as the sidewalk. Boundary stones that are too high or curbs that are inconvenient to pedestrians will disappear, and and manhole covers will be made uniform to fit in with the area.

Then a city councilor or somebody said something at the end of the article but I think it’s silly how articles always end with a single sentence from an interview that says the same thing as the rest of the article.