Hong Kong’s Harbourfront Commission approves plan for eco-friendly footbridge linking central Wan Chai to Victoria Harbour
- The 190-metre-long West Landscaped Deck includes covered walkway, open-air gallery and viewing deck
- Construction to begin in 2020 with completion expected in 2024
The proposed design of an eco-friendly footbridge meant to provide a faster, more enjoyable walk from central Wan Chai to the waterfront has been approved by Hong Kong’s harbour oversight body.
The Harbourfront Commission’s Hong Kong Island task force was in favour of the project on Tuesday, asking the government to merely fine-tune the proposed walkway with an eye to additional features such as food and drink concessions and more cover.
The 190-metre-long (623-foot) footbridge would connect a future waterfront promenade with a roof garden near the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. The hotel has access to Wan Chai MTR station and Gloucester Road, the road that separates central and northern Wan Chai.
The new walkway, called the West Landscaped Deck, includes a covered passage at least four metres wide, an open-air gallery and a viewing deck. In the proposed design, most of the footbridge will be covered with grass.
Compared with the current routes, the footbridge would allow pedestrians to reach the harbourfront promenade three minutes faster from the Wan Chai station and eight minutes faster from Gloucester Road.
“The deck is different from an ordinary footbridge,” said Rosalind Cheung Man-yee, principal assistant secretary of the Development Bureau. “It doesn’t just enhance connectivity: it also has its own features.”
The cost of building the footbridge is covered by the HK$4.6 billion (US$586 million) Wan Chai Development Phase II project, which aims to expand Wan Chai and improve its infrastructure.
Construction of the deck is expected to begin in 2020 and be complete by early 2024. The footbridge will follow the completion of the new 560-metre (1,837-foot) harbourfront promenade between Central and Wan Chai, which is expected to be operational by 2021.
The promenade is one of the harbourfront enhancement projects covered by the HK$500 million allocated by the government in January 2017.
The footbridge will connect with the west part of the promenade next to the Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Centre.
The southern end of the footbridge includes an open-air gallery, which provides space amid greenery for art displays or cultural activities. The northern end includes a viewing deck, where pedestrians can look out over the harbour sea.
Most members of the commission’s task force approved building the deck as soon as possible. Some even offered suggestions for how to improve the design.
Evans Iu Po-lung, a landscape architect, said the deck should have more shade in addition to the covered walkway because most of the gallery and viewing deck would be exposed to the city’s scorching summer sun.
“If you want to encourage citizens to enjoy being here, you need to provide more shade,” Iu said.
Paul Zimmerman, chief executive of Designing Hong Kong, said there should be food and drink services on the deck or at its harbourfront end because the ground level was already taken up by wide roads.
Ringo Mok Wing-cheong, deputy project manager of the Civil Engineering and Development Department, said the government had been studying how to provide more shade and would consider providing food and drinks services at the end of the footbridge if space permits.
