Population Density and Traffic
IMG_7546
Originally uploaded by jmstylr.In order to get around the city, I walk, bike, and drive, in fairly equal proportion. What's interesting is that when I put on a different hat, the frame of reference totally switches.
This happened last night as I was walking with tashamonster, when I expressed disdain against a seemingly uncaring vehicle that cut us off at a crossing. But then she reminded me that often times when I am a driver, I also get mad at pedestrians. As I was commuting to work this morning, it suddenly hit me why pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers are so often at odds with each other.
I was thinking about how, when I was growing up in Hong Kong, I don't seem to have any troubles getting around by walking, even though there are way more people and cars in Hong Kong than there are in Montreal.
pedestrian overpass
Originally uploaded by mlertpac.Then I remembered that there were many more services for pedestrains in Hong Kong, in particular overpasses and underpasses, that just don't exist in North American cities. Why is that? The major throughfares in Hong Kong tend to be big streets, as big as, say, Rene Levesque. By putting in place overpasses and underpasses, both cars and pedestrains get to keep moving all the time (in theory).
But why don't these facilities exist in Montreal? I thought about it a bit and I realized it's because our city blocks are tiny compared. One Hong Kong city block is the size of maybe 4 Montreal city blocks (never mind that Hong Kong is not laid out in "blocks"), so it has the effect of funneling pedestrains into common crossing points. Inside each superblock, the streets are basically alleys, where cars have to move really slowly anyway, so you can cross basically anywhere. With smaller blocks, there are just too many crossing points for over/under-passes.
OK, so maybe it has to do with population density. Since there are so many people in Hong Kong, buildings go up rather than sideways, and more people are concentrated in each superblock. So it makes sense to put up a lot of infrastructure for pedestrains. But is that really true? I pulled up some stats from the interweb and did a quick calculation:
DSC_0056
Originally uploaded by leonardo.bonanni.Hong Kong area: 1100 sqkm
Montreal area: 366 sqkm
Hong Kong population: 6.9 million
Montreal population: 1.8 million
Hong Kong / Montreal pop. ratio (PR): 3.83
Hong Kong / Montreal area ratio (AR): 3
PR/AR = 1.28
What this means is there are only 28% more people in Hong Kong, per square kilometre, and my hypothesis is wrong. It's just better city planning. This means it's actually quite possible to have much better facilities for pedestrains in Montreal.
I propose that we immediately turn every other street into grass-filled avenues, creating superblocks, and then put up overpasses connecting each superblock, Hong Kong style. :)