A two day workshop was held in Kaohsiung City in March to provide suggestions for the “EcoMobility World Festival 2017” to be hosted in Kaohsiung City in October 2017. The workshop was organized by the Transportation Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government and the EcoMobility team of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. The workshop focused on the challenges and expectations for the district chosen for the festival: Hamaxing (or Hamasen).
Experts from around the world surveyed the streets either by bicycle or on foot and provided suggestions for the mobility improvement plans to go along with the festival. Several of these experts were also attendees to the Velo-city Global 2016 Bike Congress held in Taipei. Suggestions included to promote small scale projects of impact, such as bicycle campaigns, to gradually improve urban living environments and road safety.
“The goal of developing ecomobility is not only to give option to public’s commuting preferences, but also to create an underlying policy that will improve the city’s living environment and competitiveness.” (Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, EcoMobility World Festival’s creative director)
The Director-general of the Transportation Bureau, Ching-Fu Chen hopes to make Kaohsiung City a leader in ecomobility development. Such development also helps actuate the promotion and construction of sustainable environment in the country. Kaohsiung City values ecological sustainability and its responsibility to the next generation. Thus, it aims to continue investing considerable resources in establishing a seamless transport system and sharing the benefits of low-carbon transport.
Mr. Chen hopes that the residents of the Hamaxing district will already start considering not motorized transport options as their preferred means to travel. Under the precondition that “low-carbon transport not only minimizes carbon emissions, but also creates a pollution-free environment in which to live, thereby forming a mutually beneficial situation.”
