Preventing Motorcyclists From Using Pedestrian Walkway: A Suggestion

The above photos were taken on July 23, 2014 at Jalan Masjid Negeri. The location was the pedestrian walkway in front of Penang Free School. It was newly built and friendly to both pedestrians and wheelchair users. Unfortunately some motorcyclists have started to ride on this walkway. They must be stopped.

One possible way of stopping these people is to build wheelchair gate on the walkway. The photos below illustrate my suggestion. The first photo is the current walkway. The photo below that is a concept photo (drawn with a computer software) showing how a wheelchair gate can be build to deter the motorcyclists from using the walkway. Please note the blue arrows. The logic is to create twist and turn in a narrow passage. The passage should be wide enough for wheelchairs but not motorcycles. More about wheelchair gate can be found in the link HERE.

Designing A Wheelchair Gate

In Penang, many motorcyclists often take advantage of the ramps to enter places that are not meant for them. They would enter hawker centers or pedestrian walkways by using the ramps meant for the disabled. The problem is so rampant that often the authority has to resort to placing chains across the ramps to stop these thoughtless people. I believe we can overcome this problem by building a wheelchair gate near the entry or exit point of a ramp.

A wheelchair gate (see drawings above) is a simple structure that allows wheelchair user to get through but not motorcycle. It is based on the principle that a motorcycle is much longer than a wheelchair and thus requires a larger turning radius. 

You can use any material to make wheelchair gate as long as the passage way is big enough for a wheelchair and too small for a motorcycle to turn inside. I think you can even arrange big flower pots following the layout plan below. The dimension given here is based on the space needed for a wheelchair to pass through a passage way.

You can find a video of wheelchair gate HERE. The wheelchair gate is located at MPPP’s “Turn Key” project at Patani Road, Penang.

Padang Kota Lama Food Court

A US business publication picked Georgetown as a great place for foreigners to retire in. (Visit link HERE). But I am not sure if the publication considered disabled access as one of the criteria. Personally I think some the older retired foreigners may need some form of disabled access and that is still lacking in Penang.

A good example is the Padang Kota Lama food court. It is located at Penang Esplanade, a famous tourist spot and next to the Cenotaph (visit link HERE), an important landmark of Penang. (For more information about Penang Esplanade please visit link HERE).

When I visited it on June 20th, 2013, I discovered that I was unable to enter the place. The entrance to the food court has some bars. These bars were there to stop motorcycles from entering the food court, but that also denied wheelchair users from entering the place. 

These bars are common in many public places in Penang. Many walkways, open fields and even entrance to apartments were made inaccessible by these bars. Here are some examples.

Solution to this type of problems is already there. In 2009, the local authority of Georgetown,  funded a test project to built a "wheelchair gate" --- a simple structure that allows wheelchairs to get through a passage but not a motorcycles. It is best illustrated in the video below. 

The project was successful and I was hoping that more "wheelchair gates" would be built at various strategic places in Penang. But due to reasons unknown to me, I have not notice any new one since.

For the benefits of the disable, the elderly, mothers with prams and also foreigners with mobility impairment, a "wheelchair gate" should be installed at Padang Kota Lama food court.