When I was a kid, my father, who loved fishing, used to let me know that I could catch fish by throwing a fishing rod where the water flow is slow and there is grass. The place where the water was in a hurry was that the fish gathered because the fish are busy swimming, but if there is grass, they can eat food and hide the body. I hated fishy fishiness, so I didn't have a hobby for fishing, but when I draw a fish, I have to draw a few seconds to make it feel like it's finished.

The method of bringing people into a city that no one finds is no different from planting aquatic plants for fish. If you look closely at Teheran-ro in Gangnam, the car runs faster and the people's steps are faster. There is no'space for rest' on this road, which is quickly passed by both cars and people. On the other hand, the Gyeongui Forest Road, which is loved by many people, has high trees that create shade, benches to rest for a while, and lawn vacancy where children can jump freely. Restaurants and shops are lined up along the forest path, and thanks to the sparkling store lights, safety is doubled even at late night.


If you watch the pace of people walking on Tehran Road and Gyeongui Forest Road, you can see that people walking on Gyeongui Forest Road are significantly slower. Although walking may be slow because most people come out to play on the Gyeongui Forest Road, Tehranro must admit that it is inevitable that the nature of the people who are busy moving to work or to work is fast. Since there are no facilities that act as'waterweed' on Tehran Road, if you make a shelter on Tehran Road like Gyeongui Forest Road, you can prove the causal relationship between walking speed and convenience facilities.


In 2009, an experiment was conducted in New York to prove this causal relationship. Times Square, the most complex in New York, banned traffic and ran a'car-free street' for six months. At first, the opposition of the citizens was severe, but as the performances of artists were all over the place with chairs on the road where cars were not coming in, people began to flock and the sales of nearby stores rose. As there was a place to see and relax, people's walking speed naturally slowed down and pedestrian accidents decreased. Later, Times Square worked on reducing lanes and turned it into a comfortable place to walk.


The'car-free street' experiment is also being conducted in Korea. The car-free street, which was first started in 2014, has a 550m-long road from the entrance of Yonsei University to Sinchon Ogeori, making it impossible for cars to travel on weekends, and has created chairs and a simple venue in the space where cars were parked. As street performances were held and people gathered, the shops around the area were also energized and became a favorite street for young people. According to data released by the National Institute of Environmental Sciences in 2018, there was also an effect of improving the environment, where the level of air pollution in a car-free street was significantly lowered due to the Sinchon Yonsei. The cultural space is also being created one after another, and the whole area of ​​Sinchon, which was a simple consumer, is transforming into a new cultural production area.

Jeff Speck, author of the'Walkable City', argued that creating a walkable environment attracts creative young people and creates an attractive urban atmosphere. If you have a local government that plans to bring people together to revitalize the city, you might be interested in creating a'walking street that's slower'.

* Editor's Note: Architect Kim Jong-dae's'Architectural Behind Architecture' series contains behind-the-scenes stories in architecture on three themes: city, architecture, and market. Meet every other Saturday at'In-It'.


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