Architect urges Seoul to embrace on-demand cars

Moshe Safdie

By Kim Tae-gyu

One of the world’s top architects recommended that Seoul should introduce publicly-owned vehicles rented to masses in order to grapple with the aggravating traffic jams of the sprawling metropolis.

Moshe Safdie, a U.S.-based professional architect and former professor at Harvard University, made the proposal on the mobility-on-demand system Thursday in media conference held in Seoul.

``The other struggle today in all cities including Seoul is the traffic congestion... A few years ago, I suggested that we should try to move away from private ownership of automobiles to on demand readily available when we need,’’ Safdie said.

``Then, we can cut down the number of vehicles by 300 percent and parking lots by hundreds of percent... Korea can actually initiate such a program with its formidable automobile industry and corporation innovation. It can pioneer that field.’’

In his book of the City After the Automobile: an Architect’s Vision published in the late 1990s, Safdie came up with the scheme of non private electric cars kept in storage depots and rented to the masses when necessary.

Safdie required Seoul to spearhead the unprecedented traffic format as the country has a track record of chalking up innovations as well as accommodates global first-string automakers of Hyundai Motors and Kia Motor.

The responses are mixed. Some hailed the idea as a proactive way of trimming greenhouse gas emissions or traffic tie-ups. By contrast, some observers branded the proposal as too fanciful to come true.

``The initiative seems to be fine with bicycles, but not with automobiles. Most people would be eager to have their own sedans instead of using them on demand,’’ Woori Investment & Securities analyst Cho Soo-hong said.

``Plus, I am not sure whether or not domestic carmakers would cooperate with the policy because their revenues are feared to go down in case people start to share vehicles.’’

The Seoul Metropolitan City appears to be on the same page with Cho.

``We now have the public bicycle rental program in place to run 440 cycles in the city. Yet, we would not be able to phase in a similar project for automobiles, whose prices are very high,’’ a city official said.

Safdie has gained global spotlight by designing a host of global landmarks. He also has a Korean connection.

On top of the fact that his daughter-in-law is Korean, Safdie designed the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, the luxury hotel built by Korea’s Ssangyong Engineering & Construction.

The eastern building stands at an angle of 52 degrees. In comparison, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted at an angle of 5.5 degrees.
The hotel is composed of three buildings, which combine to have rooms of 2,561 and share the same room on which a sky park is constructed with three swimming pools, an observation deck, a spa and restaurants.

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