Transit Jam is being charged with public disorder, apparently for complaining to cops about illegally parked vehicles.
The government might raise the fine for illegal parking from HK$320 to HK$400, which won’t make any meaningful difference to either revenues or illegal parking.
And a comment pointing out that the fixed penalty for traffic offences is out of line with that for, say, spitting, and that a serious deterrent would in theory not raise any extra revenue if it succeeded in ending the problem of illegal parking.
With all that in mind, my modest proposal…
It seems that most streets in urban areas do not allow for metered or other parking, and are typically one-way but have two marked lanes, and maybe enough space in practice for three. Think Queens Road Central, or the dozens of side streets in North Point, Tsim Sha Tsui, etc. The logic presumably is that if one lane is blocked by a truck making a delivery or by an accident, the traffic can still move on the other lane. But in reality, the spare space is invariably used, illegally, for car storage.
Since that one lane is in fact blocked off and out of action all day, it follows that you could just physically bar cars from it and use it to make wider sidewalks for pedestrians, or bicycle lanes, or displays of panda bears – without disrupting traffic flow. (The cops do this on some streets for 24 hours leading up to fireworks displays or Halloween.)
The authorities could simply do this by installing removable barriers (so the extra lane could be cleared in an emergency). The point is that there would be only one lane accessible to traffic, which would be moving.
What about delivery vehicles, which perform a necessary function? There would be a small number of spaces reserved for them along these one-lane streets. But these spaces would also store high-visibility clamps/boots. A few local residents (say shopkeepers) would be trained to use them and given an app to take a photo and upload the details of any Alphard whose owner is stupid enough to use one of these spaces for parking. That enforcer would get (say) a HK$500 reward for each clamping. The app would also order a recovery truck to tow the clamped vehicle to a pound far, far away in the New Territories (with the truck operator earning, say, HK$1,000 for his time).
The owner could get his Alphard back after a nice long three-month period and upon payment of a HK$10,000 fine.
Problem solved, I suspect.
You could go further, and just pedestrianize many side streets, with some clamp-equipped delivery space at the end of the block. While we’re at it, phase out all metered parking too. I bet half the cars moving through urban streets are basically looking for a parking space. They wouldn’t be there if they knew they wouldn’t find one. And you could fire all the traffic wardens.
“But where would people park their cars?” Don’t know, don’t care. Ask the 90% of people who don’t have a car for further details. (Or – time for another app – create an online system for pre-booking and bidding/paying for spaces in actual off-street parking facilities. If you don’t get/can’t afford a slot, take the bus or train.)
I’m sure ‘One Country, Two Systems’ AI under development could play a role…
More than 70 Hong Kong government departments have started using the beta version of a locally developed ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence (AI) tool powered by DeepSeek’s data learning model, the city’s innovation chief has said.
The new tool, named “HKGAI V1” and developed by the Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Centre (HKGAI) under the government’s InnoHK innovation programme, is expected to be made available to the industry and the public soon.
Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong said on Tuesday that the launch of DeepSeek earlier this year took the world by storm, prompting the centre’s research team to integrate the Hangzhou-based AI start-up’s data learning model with the processing capabilities of the “HKGAI V1” model.
“It fully embodies the values of ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong, leading to the successful launch of ‘HKGAI V1’,” the minister said, as the tool debuted at a global launching ceremony at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
“From the centre’s inception to the official release of Hong Kong’s self-developed large language model, this journey from inception to creation inscribes a wonderful innovation legend beneath Lion Rock…”
Name 70 government departments.
“With all that in mind, my modest proposal…”
Thanks for your suggestion, Mr. Lychee. We’ll get right on it!
– HK Gov. Dept. of Caring in the Slightest What Anyone Thinks
Thanks for the link, Mr Lychee sir. Excellent proposals. I just said something similar on X with a time-lapse of Castle Peak Road showing how utterly mismanaged our wide roads are- but I wasn’t as imaginative as robot clamping machines, love that.
The main complaint against cycling or cycle lanes is “there’s not enough space”, which, as every sensible person who’s ever walked any of these roads knows, is nonsense. This was the whole thrust of “Pedestrianise Queen’s Road Central”, which demonstrated a management solution which would maintain loading-hours but would open up the whole street to pedestrians (possibly shared with cyclists) — and which ultimately saw me investigated by NSL cops when I tried to present it to Xia Baolong (after years of banging heads against uninterested folk at Transport Dept and any of the other 69 government departments).
Nah…any do gooder citizen or shop owner that dared stand up to an Alftard driver might get threatened with white shirted, paid revenge squads visiting after hours to “make a point” (even going out to threaten impound lots – IF they’re not the ones that own said lot).
Mix that with the natural Chinese propensity to meekly bow one’s head, not get involved and mutter “nothing I can do about it” (in Chinese) and you get a perfect laissez faire scenario.