An empirical study of the impacts of pedestrian footbridge networks on street life in Hong Kong

Abstract

As one of the most densely populated cities in the world, Hong Kong is overcrowded with pedestrians on the streets. Footbridge networks are ubiquitous in the city to relieve the pedestrian flows on the ground and solve the conflicts between different road users. Pedestrian footbridge networks play certain influence on pedestrian path, shaping people’s behavior and daily activities. The development of extensive footbridge systems contributes to reduction of diversity and vitality of ground-level street life. However, it is unclear how these pedestrian footbridge networks impact the street life using empirical evidence. This dissertation aims to investigate pedestrian footbridge networks in Hong Kong and evaluate their potential impact on street life. The significance of pedestrian footbridge networks on street life is firstly reviewed. It further studies different aspects of the footbridge networks in terms of the construction objectives, pedestrian circulation, walkability etc., using Sha Tin and Tseung Kwan O as case studies. The users’ perspectives on the pedestrian footbridge networks in both districts are examined and compared. By summarizing and analyzing the findings, this dissertation intends to provide advice on the planning of pedestrian footbridge networks in new development areas. Regarding the methodology adopted for this research, the quality of ground-level street front in the designated districts is measured in order to quantify the impacts of pedestrian footbridge networks on street life. The measurement includes number of units visible and accessible from streets (e.g., shops, residential entrance lobby), diversity of function (i.e., number of different land uses) and openness (i.e., percentage of windows or shops visible from streets) at regular intervals along the streets. Classification on types of shops encountered by pedestrians at elevated walkways is made to explore their characteristics (e.g., whether they are chain stores or high-end shops), as well as the relation with the ownership of footbridges and the developers behind. Primary information is gathered by desktop research for identifying the geographical location of pedestrian footbridge networks, covering the basic information regarding the nature of footbridges. Site visit and observation are primarily adopted to collect the empirical first-hand data. The performance of footbridges and also their linkage with surrounding buildings and neighbourhoods are observed. Besides, analytical tool of space syntax provides quantitative analysis on spatial configuration. It is expected that the research will help understand the planning objective and rationale behind for footbridge construction, as well as private sector’s power and influence. The controversy over necessity of building pedestrian footbridges and duplicated appearance of similar elevated walkway system in new towns are also issues to be delved into.