Road Improvement Programme
The Road Improvement Programme was a policy of Stanley Trup, mayor of Kien-k'ang from 1955 – 60. The number of privately-owned motor vehicles increased in Kien-k'ang by a factor of about 20 between 1930 and 1955, and complaints about the city's road infrastructure surfaced during the mayorship of Lord Te-rit (1947 – 1955). The policy consisted of several components aiming to allow pedestrians and vehicles to travel efficiently and safely in the city by widening and reinforcing roads and bridges, covering storm drains, and installing traffic lights and lamps.
The RIP was implemented by the Road Improvement Board (RIB). The policy was never formally dropped, but its content has shifted from time to time reflecting the city's concerns and emphasis on transit priorities. While the initial focus was on improving roads for motor vehicles to mitigate the danger they posed to other traffic, the specific needs of pedestrians and cyclists have been more systematically taken into account by the RIB since the 1990s.
New and connecting roads
Old Kien-k'ang, the region within the city walls, had a number of thoroughfares corresponding to medieval highways or new roads built in the 1800s that subdivided the city into multiple geographic districts. Within the districts delimited by highways, streets mostly formed organically, and as such they were short, crooked, narrow, and difficult to navigate if travelling a long distance. Many streets permitted travel in one direction or terminated in cul-de-sacs, or they were so narrow to accommodate only pedestrians. This means a driver usually must use a thoroughfare to travel any great distance, but in Trup's time the thoroughfares had extremely heavy traffic, ofting grinding to a complete halt in busy hours.
Pavements
The traffic rules in Kien-k'ang were also an area of major change in Trup's mayorship. Originally, where the road was triple or quadruple carriageway, vehicles had priority in the central section and may drive at speed, but they must yield to pedestrians in the peripheral carriageways and only move at a speed agreeable to foot traffic. Prior to the advent of motor vehicles, horses may gallop in the centre of the road but not on its sides. The Royal Boulevard and New West Road were examples of this design. However, the central carriageway proved too narrow by the 1950s, and so vehicles travelling at speed in the peripheral carriageways rushed pedestrians.
Covered drains and sewers
The major medieval highways and 19th-century boulevards were flanked by open storm drains of considerable depth and width, so that a small bridge was necessary to provide access to the side of the road and for transverse streets. These bridges, unless connecting transverse streets, were usually pedestrian-only, even if they appeared wide enough to accommodate a vehicle. Such deceptively weak bridges were common because they led to grand houses, for which a narrow bridge appeared out of place. If a house along the road possessed a motor vehicle, the bridge over the drain could be reinforced to allow the car to pass; however, this is usually only done to the extent an intended car could pass over it, as it was an improvement made at private expense. There were not-infrequent reports of delivery trucks partly falling into the sewers due to their much greater weight, causing the bridge to give way.
During Trup's mayorship, it became an imperative from the City Council to erect permanent covers over the storm drains not so much for the convenience of vehicles but because of an increasing awareness of public safety. This occurred after lobbies cultivated a concern for persons, often children, reported drowned or missing after falling into drains. Such accidents were uncommon but far from unknown, since such drains usually faced a private home directly, and bridges over them did not always have railings. With narrow roads, this was less of a concern as the storm drains were not deep enough to wash a person away, but on the major boulevards the drains could reach 2 m wide by 2 m deep, and the confluence of other drains created a consistent and powerful water current.
Between 1957 and 1962, most of the major water drains in Kien-k'ang were covered by cement blocks or metal grates. The cement blocks were the preferred solution, but under an existing bridge a metal grate (at a lower level) was used to preserve the scenery of a bridge passing over the drain, which was part of the landscaping of the house to which the bridge connected. Where a cover was not practical, railings were installed to alert pedestrians of the danger of the drain, and street lights were installed further to make the presence of the drain obvious.
Improved bridges
Bridges were a source of consternation for road users, particularly in the suburbs, which were converted from farmland to housing in the early 20th century. As the local land required irrigation, water channels criss-crossed many suburbs. Though no longer used for irrigation, some waterways were still used as source of fresh water up to the 1920s, and others were used as storm drains or sewers. To connect streets on either side of the waterway, a large number of bridges were thus built with pedestrian traffic in mind. For this reason Kien-k'ang was known as the city of bridges, there being over 6,000 bridges in the metropolitan area, many serving as local landmarks and toponyms. The name Pran-rang, which occurs in 23 places in Kien-k'ang alone, means "plank bridge".
Many bridges were not passable for motor vehicles but led from roads that were passable, and collapsing bridges were a common hazard in suburban Kien-k'ang since the 1920s. Local boards under the city usually had the responsibility to erect signs cautioning drivers, but the signs were often unheeded. Trup's RIP required local authorities to erect physical barriers such as bollards or steps so that darkness alone would not permit drivers to pass over a timber bridge. The longer-term goal, however, was to convert the bridges to masonry or iron bridges so that vehicles could pass over them, rather than seek a passable bridge along the waterway and negotiate with concomitant delay.
By Trup's mayorship, 21 bridges existed over the River Kaung, connecting Kien-k'ang to the west of the river, which had become the city's suburb. Aside from 5 used by railways, 13 were passable to motor vehicles, but 10 of them were one-directional bridges due to their limited width. These bridges were unfriendly to visitors since the roads that led up to them were bi-directional, which meant it is possible to travel up to a bridge and only to turn back. Locals, however, usually had little issue memorizing which bridges travelled which way, and this was without order. Facing a lack of funds to widen all bridges as a permanent solution, Trup instead changed the traffic direction of several bridges so they alternated. Thus, if one had to turn back at one bridge, the next bridge up or down stream would allow one to travel over the river. Further improvements were made after 1966 to reinforce pedestrian bridges for motor traffic.