Anyone who’s ever spent a weeknight trying to enjoy a drink on Lan Kwai Fong’s main strip, D’Aguilar Street, while dodging the procession of taxis coming down the hill will probably have wondered why the drag is not fully pedestrianised. “There are so many taxis, honking and parking, sometimes it’s impossible for diners,” says Caroline Chow, sales and marketing director of LKF Group. “Taxi drivers can be aggressive but what’s worse are their idling engines driving up pollution.”

Instead of blocking vehicles only on weekends, having a permanent nighttime ban – say, from 7pm onwards – would likely draw even bigger crowds lured by a safer (and less petrol-scented) environment. However, LKF Group has yet to make such a proposal to the government. One problem is that they would almost certainly encounter resistance from the police for the consequential increased traffic on other streets, but another more surprising obstacle is that local celebrities have been known to refuse to go to restaurants where they can’t arrive incognito from paparazzi.

A few years ago a similar pedestrian scheme was discussed for Staunton Street in Soho. According to Simon Squibb, CEO of Fluid Group, who operate the I Love SoHo website (www.ilovesoho.hk), a survey the company conducted among residents and visitors found that only 58 per cent of the 28,000 respondents supported the proposal, with bad weather and the inconvenience of walking uphill cited as disadvantages to the traffic ban.

Anna Bisazza

Read the features:
Establish an art cinema on Hong Kong Island
Host mega-gigs at Hong Kong Stadium
Put a rooftop garden on top of the Museum of Art
Parks that are more fun than restrictive
Finish the TST construction works
Relax noise ordinances in bar areas
Build a super club
Ban evening traffic from Lan Kwai Fong