[sustran] Re: Pedestrian Overbridge

[Craig Townsend]

A planner who led in the improvement of transport in Taipei (including the 
creation of bus lanes) in the 1990s told me a few years ago that a turning 
point occurred when the Taipei administration resolved to begin demolishing 
the pedestrian overpasses (which forced pedestrians to suffer an unpleasant 
and arduous climb) and creating at-grade pedestrian crossings that would 
make vehicles stop for pedestrians. He felt similarly that Bangkok's 
overpasses were a problem rather than a solution. I myself feel less 
negative about the growing network of elevated pedestrian walkways being 
built to connect Bangkok's elevated BTS train stations to buildings: these 
would appear to be performing successfully in some ways similar to those 
cited by Mark. I'm now based in Montreal which has what we claim to be the 
world's largest underground network of pedestrian walkways. As in some 
other North American cities with underground or elevated walkways, they 
provide benefits in protection against the climate, but also create a semi 
or pseudo public realm which excludes some people and spreads out 
pedestrian traffic more thinly. There are many issues at stake!

Craig Townsend

At 12:46 AM 29/10/2004, you wrote:
>If you don't mind the input of an informed consumer of pedestrian
>bridges, I've made a number of observations, mostly in Japan and
>Thailand, but more than a few in the US as well.
>
>In my experience, these are very successful in at least two sets of
>circumstances: