Taipei City Construction Management Office

1. BackgroundA place sheltering pedestrians and shopping tourists from sunshine and rain while enjoying being outdoors, the arcade is a characteristic unique to Taiwan, which is located in the subtropics and has high temperatures and high precipitation. As the management rules of arcade are incomplete, the elevations of arcade floor are uneven, making them difficult for users to walk on. Therefore, based on the concept of a people-focused environment, the Taipei City Government pioneered the “arcade floor evening” work in Taiwan in 2002. Like a tailor tailoring clothes, the city government has fitted a brand new pavement on top of the arcade floor, hoping to provide citizens with a convenient walking environment.2. ContentsConstruction Management Office(CMO) has planned the pavement-smoothening work for a total of 170,000 meters worth of arcade floor located at stations, scenic spots, shopping areas and hospitals in order to even out the arcade floor step by step in a radial, linear and plane manner. Also, CMO has incorporated, as much as possible, the opinions of local shop owners and opinion leaders during the planning and design in order to even out the arcade floor while maintaining local characteristics.3. Implementation In order to promote the plan, the Taipei City Government formed a cross-departmental arcade floor evening steering taskforce in 2007 to create immediate solutions for problems occurring at the cross-departmental interface through regular meetings. After communicating with local residents and understanding their wishes through local borough offices, this taskforce held onsite presentations to communicate with local residents and ease their doubts in order to smoothly promote the plan. 4. AccomplishmentsFrom 2002 to 2009, a total of 118,676m of arcade floor has been improved, and flat, beautiful and convenient arcade floor began to appear in Taipei City. In 2010, the evening work of another 1,000m of arcade floor is planned. On 16 December 2009, Mayor Hao inspected the accomplishments of the plan and presided on the arcade floor accessibility ice-breaking ceremony, vowing to complete the first phase of the plan in 2010, which is to finish the work on 120,000m of arcade floor. Mayor Hao also pointed out that the assessment of the evening work of the remaining 50,000m of arcade floor will continue.5. VisionAs the arcade floor evening plan is widely accepted by citizens, who are expecting the government to continue with the plan, the Taipei City Government will review and assess the evening work of the remaining 50,000 m of arcade floor in the second phase in 2011 and will continue to include a budget for the plan in order to turn Taipei City into a truly accessible metropolis.Statistics on Plan Implementation