The retired planning maverick who's on a 'mission from God' to take trams off Hong Kong's roads
Scrap Central's iconic trams? Sacrilege, cry conservation and environmental activists. No, I'm just doing my job, says Sit Kwok-keung
To a retired town planner, it seemed a perfectly reasonable question: Why not take trams off the roads in Central to reduce traffic congestion?
Sit Kwok-keung says he was unhappy at the storm of criticism his application to the Town Planning Board to do just that provoked, but he quickly got over it as he knew such a reaction was inevitable.
Conservation, environmental and urban planning groups have been up in arms, voicing their opposition to any suggestion that the iconic 110-year-old trams would be derailed, even forming an alliance to call on the board to reject the application.
"There will always be opposing views in town planning. So are we not going to get the job done whenever there's opposition?" Sit asks. "I think I have done nothing wrong in this case and that's why I will continue regardless of the opposing views."
In an interview with the Sit revealed he spent only two days drafting his proposal before it was submitted to the board early last month. Although he is unsure whether the proposal will be good for Hong Kong in the long run, the 60-year-old says it is the job of town planners to review what was not done in the original planning and follow it up.
"Bus routes have now been reorganised - why can't tram [routes] be the same?"
