Car-free day in Seoul

Car-free day, or 차없는날, was held last year on September 10. There is a translation of a short news article on the event here. I took the afternoon to walk down the length of Jongno (종로) and witness it firsthand.

Jongno is one of the busiest streets in Korea, with three to four traffic lanes in each direction, hundreds of small stores and restaurants (usually chain establishments), major transit nodes, and a dozen bus routes running along its length. Its width owes to a historical use as a processional for royalty in old Seoul. Along with Euljiro and Cheonggyecheon, it is one of the major east-west connectors in downtown Seoul, and during business hours is invariably hectic with cars, buses, taxis, scooters, and pedestrians elbowing for space. Unfortunately, pedestrians make up the bottom of the pecking order, and are squeezed into narrow sidewalks and forced to wait minutes for crosswalk signals. In some parts of Jongno, the only safe way to cross between the north and south sidewalks is an underground arcade or subway station (these, too, are crammed with merchants).

Such is life on Jongno. Car-free day was a one-day demonstration of what life could be if traffic was limited to buses (and a few brazen scooter riders), and most of the street opened up to pedestrians.

A quick list of what the city changed:

• Used traffic cones and barricades to narrow the street to two center lanes: one bus lane for each direction.
• Set up traffic cops at each intersection to prevent any vehicle that was not a public transit bus from entering the street.
• Added signs and more public servants to guide foot traffic at intersections and provide information.
• Closed parking lots to public institutions to encourage transit use.
• Allowed free use of buses during early morning rush hour.
• Added information kiosks on environmental issues, "green technology" (including a fuel cell bus), bicycle options, city planning, etc.
• Created a grassy (thin layer of turf) area in front of Jongak hosting public performances, mostly elementary school kids in shrill song-and-dance numbers.

So, was it a success? If anything, it demonstrated how accustomed people have become to automobile-centered design. Except for areas where kiosks beckoned curious people to step onto the asphalt roadway, most pedestrians remained on the sidewalk, content to observe. Street vendors also stayed on the sidewalk facing away from the road, maintaining the narrower corridors that people were used to. It didn't help that the street trees were too small to offer much shade beyond the sidewalks. As a result, the view of the street was mostly desolate, with few citizens taking advantage of the extra width of walking area.

One amusing example of this was watching people catch the bus.  Since buses were restricted to the middle lanes of the road, they also had to stop in those lanes to pick up passengers. Despite knowing this, people opted to wait for their buses at the usual spots on the sidewalk, and made a mad dash to the center when their bus arrived. A similar problem occurred at crosswalks; people waited for the walk signal at the sidewalk, instead of stepping in close to the actual vehicle lanes in use.

This illustrates a major oversight by the event planners: the timing of lights and walk signals remained the same, and people had to wait just as long to cross the street, whether across the two bus lanes on Jongno or any of the intersections along its length. The heavy traffic at cross-streets and the fast-moving buses necessitated traffic police at every point, but their presence discouraged people from crossing anywhere other than designated crosswalks, and at any time other than during walk signals. The walking environment felt just as restricted and formal as it did with the car traffic.

What does this imply for a universally accessible Seoul? First, pedestrians are very mindful of remaining within their designated boundaries, their behavior reinforced by physical barriers, plantings, painted lines, traffic behavior, and the presence of authority. There was little sense of "taking back the street", in the way that they took back Cheonggyecheon from exclusively automobile use. It is unlikely that Jongno will ever be car-free on a regular basis, so to improve accessibility and comfort in the long-term, the city will need to explore widening the sidewalks at the expense of car lanes. Car-free day shows that traffic in Seoul still circulates well without Jongno available, so perhaps there is room to reduce its capacity.

Second, it is nice to be able to cross the street aboveground for most of its length, and having ample time to do so. It is much easier to cross two lanes than six, especially if you have trouble moving as quickly as the signals demand, and to avoid the stairs leading in and out of underground walkways.

Lastly, no matter how much space you create for pedestrians, they will not use it if it is uncomfortable or uninteresting. In absence of shade, street commerce, or civic engagement, there was little incentive to leave the sidewalk for hot, open asphalt. Removing the cars from Jongno reveals the fundamental difficulty in creating a comfortable, attractive walking environment in such a wide street.