March 22, 2004

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Taking turns

Hong Kong Island has exactly one highway. Everything else is at best two lanes each way and at worse barely one each way. Despite what many think the Island is not just a concrete jungle. In fact almost half the Island is taken by parkland. That sometimes means that major roads suffer blocks. And such blockages in Hong Kong are unique.

Often it is because in an effort to hold back nature every hillside in the entire city is concreted to prevent landslides. That's right - every hillside. Each hillside has a registration number and drainage plans. If this seems strange to you then you don't understand Hong Kong. Of course the easiest solution is to not build in areas prone to landslides or to do works that mitigate the landslide risks. But you can't get in the way of real estate in this city. And so the hillsides become concrete.

So the family are driving out to Shek O beach yesterday and we encounter a traffic jam. Because the roads are often windy the courtesy is to put one's hazard lights on to alert those behind you that you are stopping. Apparently brake lights don't do the job. Then everyone proceeds to sit there wondering what is going on up ahead. After a few minutes the impatient start doing 43-point turns to turn back and go another way. Despite there being no other way without circumnavigating the entire island. Then the golden rule of HK traffic applies: once three people do these U-turns, traffic begins moving again.

Inevitably at the road block the scene is the same. There is a woman swaddled head to toe in clothing, scarves, blankets and whatnot. This happens in the dead of winter or the height of summer. This woman has the important job of switching the signs that say stop or go. Then there's the assorted municipal workers standing around doing not much. A universal phenomena. As the traffic from one side meanders past the traffic on the other side is at a halt, staring enviously at those lucky people who have made it through.

But these people don't stay there all day and night. They work a normal shift and then go home. So what happens to the traffic? Simply they follow the traffic light that controls the flow instead. Which makes one wonder why they need those swaddled women inhaling noxious fumes for hours on end when the traffic lights work just fine?

Another make work scheme courtesy of the HK Government.

posted by Simon on 03.22.04 at 10:36 AM in the




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