If Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon has his way, the Seoul Station Elevated Motorway will be closed to vehicles starting October and transformed into an aerial garden by 2017. 

The City Hall on Wednesday announced the selection of the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV led by Winy Maas to transform the aged elevated motorway connecting the eastern and western parts of the city into “The Seoul Arboretum.”

“The Seoul Arboretum” envisions the entire stretch of the 938-meter-long elevated motorway as a giant tree with 17 ramps that are seen as branches. In the artist’s rendition, potted trees and plants dot the garden and various plants hang from the sides of the elevated way, offering the pedestrians on the ground something to enjoy as well.

The transformation of the Seoul Station Elevated Motorway ― opened in 1970 and earmarked for demolition due to safety concerns ― into an arboretum will cost the city some 38 billion won, including the cost of reinforcing the existing structure.

Since announcing the plan for Seoul’s own version of New York City’s High Line Park ― a 2.33-kilometer-long elevated park on a disused rail track in Manhattan ― during his visit in September 2014, with the pledge to turn the “legacy of industrialization” into a green park that would top the New York landmark, Park has been met with stiff opposition from area merchants and residents who claim that their businesses and quality of living will suffer in the absence of a new elevated motorway.

Those opposed to the plan express frustration with the way the project was announced without consulting Seoulites. The announcement caught the public by surprise as demolition work on the elevated motorway was to have begun in December of that year to be followed by the construction of a new elevated motorway. In deciding to turn the existing motorway into an aerial park and scrapping the plan for a replacement, Park skipped a crucial step in decision-making ― listening to various opinions.

The mayor has been trying hard to sell the idea, explaining how it would be a new attraction for the city, would offer a great vista of Mount Namsan and the surrounding areas, be part of Seoul’s transformation into a pedestrian-friendly city, and how it would actually bring more business to the Namdaemun Market ― which has seen a continued decline in the last 10 years ― by increasing foot traffic. To show the possibilities of the Seoul Station Elevated Motorway as a pedestrian park, Park closed off the elevated way to motor traffic on May 10 and invited Seoulites to come out for a spring picnic. The event drew 50,000 visitors, according to the Seoul City.

On the ground, however, hundreds of protestors expressed their opposition to transforming the motorway into a park. They want a new elevated motorway built before the existing one is closed to traffic. Most of the demonstrators were Namdaemun Market shopkeepers who said traffic congestion caused by closure of the elevated motorway would drive the 50,000 merchants in the market dating back to the 17th century out of business.

City Hall, which had previously insisted that rerouting of traffic in the area should be sufficient to handle the congestion caused by the closure, on May 7 announced that it may consider building a new elevated motorway as part of a plan to redevelop the area north of Seoul Station in partnership with KORAIL. The rail company immediately retorted that it had not been consulted on the matter.

This would involve reviving the urban redevelopment plan that was abandoned in 2008 because it was judged to be economically unviable. Judging by the recent developments, the elevated park project appears to have taken on a life of its own, with Park enticing the naysayers with a once-abandoned redevelopment plan.

Unlike New York’s High Line Park which repurposed a disused rail track, the Seoul Station 2017 Project involves shutting down a motorway that is used by 27,000 cars per hour. Even if a replacement were built as part of a redevelopment plan ― and it could be a big if ― that would take many years. Those who are affected by the closure want a permanent solution to the traffic problem, not a stopgap measure or a vague promise of a new elevated motorway sometime in the future.

Until the traffic concerns are addressed to the satisfaction of Seoulites, Park should slow down with the plan to complete the project by 2017, coincidentally a presidential election year.

The haste with which Park is pursuing the project leads to the inevitable question ― is he running for the Blue House? We saw how former President Lee Myung-bak made his way to the Blue House after restoring Cheonggyecheon Stream, and former Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, responsible for the iconic Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park, also had his eyes on the presidency. Before the issue erupted, Park had insisted that he did not want to build a landmark during his mayoral tenure. Perhaps his presidential ambition now necessitates a landmark, and he found it in a park on a condemned elevated motorway.

Ambitions often blind men. Instead of forcing through the plan, Park would do well to take some time to review the project candidly. Blindly pushing a project to serve an ulterior motive usually does not bode well.

The City Hall must keep things in perspective. If the only reason for reviving a discarded redevelopment plan previously deemed untenable is to build an aerial park, the city should consider whether a novelty park is worth risking an unsound redevelopment that could lead to great financial losses. 

By Kim Hoo-ran 

Kim Hoo-ran is an editorial writer at The Korea Herald. She can be reached at khooran@heraldcorp.com ― Ed.