Gwangju Sangmu Station~City Hall, No.1 Lifestyle Bicycle-Only Road Established

Gwangju City Holds the 16th On-Site Listening Day at Sangmu Station Meeting Plaza

On the afternoon of the 1st, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, rode a bicycle himself along a 1.5 km section from City Hall to Sangmu Station to explore measures for creating a "Safe Bicycle Riding City." Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 1st that it held the ‘16th On-site Listening Day’ at Sangmu Station’s ‘Meeting Plaza’ and sought ways to create a ‘safe city for cycling.’

This ‘On-site Listening Day’ was held with the participation of Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-seop, Seo-gu District Mayor Seo Dae-seok, City Councilor Jeong Soon-ae, Seo-gu Councilors Kang Ki-seok, Kang In-taek, Oh Gwang-kyo, members of the Citizens’ Rights Committee, and bicycle special committee officials, moderated by Choi Young-tae, chairman of the Citizens’ Rights Committee.

Mayor Lee Yong-seop personally rode a bicycle along the 1.5 km section from City Hall to Sangmu Station to inspect the overall conditions of the bicycle roads.

On this day, citizens stated, “Although Gwangju City has promoted itself as a bicycle-friendly city, dedicated bicycle lanes in the downtown area are rare, and many existing bicycle roads are damaged and disconnected,” and suggested, “To create a safe city for cycling, it is urgent to repair existing bicycle roads and expand new dedicated bicycle lanes.”

In response, Mayor Lee promised, “We will install and operate the first lifestyle bicycle-only road (tentative name) on the Sangmu Station?City Hall section, and use this as an opportunity to gradually expand lifestyle bicycle-only roads in major areas, while actively maintaining existing bicycle roads.”

He added, “We will reflect the suggestions made by citizens today in our policies to make Gwangju a safe city for cycling and a clean city free from fine dust.”

Meanwhile, since 2009, a total of 661 km of bicycle roads have been constructed throughout Gwangju, including city roads, but many sections are disconnected and not linked with public transportation, resulting in low actual usage.

Additionally, Gwangju is a car-dependent city, with passenger cars accounting for 82.9% of all vehicles as of the end of 2019.

Recently, as automobile emissions have emerged as a major cause of climate crises such as fine dust, bicycle use is being re-evaluated not just as exercise or leisure but as a low-carbon, eco-friendly public transportation method.

Accordingly, the city has been working on plans to increase the bicycle transport share in public transportation from the current 2% to about 5% through expanded bicycle use and integration with public transit.

As of the end of 2019, Gwangju operates 60 shared bicycle rental stations and 782 bicycles citywide. With the introduction of the unmanned public bicycle system ‘Tarangkke’ in the second half of this year, it is expected that bicycle use will be further activated through strengthened connections between the subway and bicycles.

The Gwangju Citizens’ Rights Committee also formed a ‘Special Committee for Creating a Safe City for Cycling’ at the end of last year and is reviewing improvement plans by analyzing cases from other cities and gathering expert and citizen opinions on bicycle-related suggestions submitted by Gwangju citizens through the citizen participation platform ‘Gwangju Happiness No.1 Street Baro Communication Gwangju.’

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