Gwangju City Promotes Improvement Project for Child Protection Zones

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 30th that it will invest 4.4 billion KRW to promote the ‘2020 Children Protection Zone Improvement Project’ to create ‘Children Protection Zones’ free from traffic accident concerns.

The ‘Children Protection Zone Improvement Project’ involves expanding various safety facilities such as traffic safety equipment, speed enforcement cameras, and traffic signals within children protection zones to protect children vulnerable to traffic accidents from related incidents.

With the enforcement of the ‘Min-sik Act (partial amendment of the Road Traffic Act and the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes)’ on March 25, Gwangju expanded the budget for related projects as the installation of speed enforcement cameras, traffic signals, and speed bumps in children protection zones became mandatory.

In particular, the city allocated 1.7 billion KRW for the children protection zone improvement project (18 locations), 1.7 billion KRW for speed enforcement camera installation around elementary schools (37 locations), 500 million KRW for installing yellow traffic lights in children protection zones (7 locations), 200 million KRW for creating a safe commuting environment for children, and 300 million KRW for maintenance of children protection zones. Some of these funds will be provided to autonomous districts to carry out the projects.

As of the end of last year, there are 615 children protection zones in Gwangju, including 157 elementary schools.

The number of speed enforcement cameras installed in children protection zones around elementary schools was only 20 before 2018, but 47 were added last year, and this year, an additional 1.7 billion KRW will be spent to install cameras at 37 more locations.

Furthermore, with the newly established provisions for installing speed enforcement cameras and traffic signals in children protection zones, Gwangju will receive additional budget support from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to install speed enforcement cameras in all elementary school children protection zones in the city. To this end, the city is conducting a demand survey for installation sites in consultation with the National Police Agency and autonomous districts.

Park Gap-su, head of the city’s Traffic Policy Division, said, “We will work closely with the National Police Agency and autonomous districts to carry out the project thoroughly and create an environment where children can commute safely without worrying about traffic accidents.”

Meanwhile, this year, besides the children protection zone improvement project, Gwangju plans to invest 1.4 billion KRW in projects to improve areas with frequent traffic accidents and 2 billion KRW in the Safe Speed 5030 project to create a safe traffic environment.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.