It is surprising how many elderly people ride the subway and the financial burden it is putting on the Seoul subway system:
The free subway fare for senior citizens, which was introduced in 1984, is one of the rare perks only seniors can enjoy in this aging society. It helps reduce rates of suicide and depression, as well as medical fees by keeping senior citizens active, according to the Korea Transport Institution’s research in 2015.
However, transporting elderly riders for free doesn’t give only advantages.
It has recently emerged as a headache for heads of big city governments, especially Seoul where most of the nation’s population is concentrated, as the deficits of Seoul Metro are snowballing to a dangerous new level.
“Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Seoul Metro has faced a deficit of 1 trillion won ($ 8.1 billion) annually, and the seniors’ free rides account for 30 percent of the deficit. Before COVID-19 it took 60 percent,” Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon wrote on Facebook, Tuesday. “In the meantime, Seoul Metro has endured by issuing corporate bonds, but now it has reached its upper limit. If it was a private company, it would have already gone bankrupt.”
You can read more at the link, but the Seoul government wants the national government to kick in money to support the subway system to prevent prices from going up even further.
Implausibly in Seoul's relentless modernity, this unassuming bridge spans 76 meters and 20+ generations of Koreans: construction started in 1420 during King Sejong's reign and finished in 1482.
It is going to get a little more expensive to get around Seoul by taxi next month:
The basic taxi fare in Seoul will rise by 1,000 won ($0.8) to 4,800 won starting next month, the city government said Monday.
The Seoul Metropolitan government’s plan to raise the base rate for mid-sized sedan cabs operating in the capital will go into effect on Feb. 1, it said.
Under the plan, the initial minimum distance for which the base taxi fare is applied will also be shortened to 1.6 kilometers from the current 2 km.
After the base fare is charged, 100 won will be additionally charged for every 131 meters of distance, up from the current 132 meters, the city also said.
Jeju island had multiple communities that wanted to host their trash incinerator while Seoul cannot find one place to put it without protests:
Jeju Environmental Resources Recycling Center in Gujwa, Jeju Island, started operating in 2019 after locals and the provincial government held months of discussions on the construction deal. The structure with a chimney, right, is an incinerator, and the square patches of land, center, are where treated waste ends up. Courtesy of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province
While Seoul’s plan to build a new trash incinerator in the western district of Mapo has been sparking protests from residents since last year, a similar plan on Jeju Island has developed into a very different course of action: Islanders are welcoming with open arms the construction of landfill facilities and several districts competed with each other to have them right in their backyards.
Last September, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province selected an uninhabited patch of the authority’s land in the Sangcheon area of Andeok District in the island’s southern city of Seogwipo as a site for the island’s new waste incinerator. The selection process, which lasted nine months from December 2021, saw no disputes with the residents. It was a clean race to win the municipality’s bid with no visible signs of a “not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) attitude among the locals.
After finding out what benefits the authority will provide to the residents living around the selected site, three different communities in Seogwipo voluntarily stepped up for the bid. Each community hoisted banners welcoming the new incinerator with hopeful and cheerful messages, a rare scene in Korea, where the public hardly embraces the construction of a large-scale waste incinerator that burns hundreds of tons of garbage every day.
You can read more at the link, but the Jeju community that hosted the trash incinerator received benefits such as new roads, community center, a swimming pool. Such incentives in Seoul are not enough to sway people who largely already have access to such facilities, thus the NIMBYism.
Maybe offering free trash service to the neighborhood in Seoul that hosts the incinerator and higher fees everywhere else might be a way to persuade a neighborhood to want to host the plant?
South Korea’s air quality reached the worst level this winter Saturday due to high levels of fine dust and yellow dust, according to weather authorities.
As of 10 a.m., the daily average concentration of ultrafine dust particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, known as PM2.5, was 86 micrograms per cubic meter, while that of fine dust known as PM10 was 143 micrograms per cubic meter across the country, according to Air Korea run by the environment ministry.
The figures were much higher than the yearly average concentration of ultrafine and fine dust of 18 and 36 micrograms per cubic meter, respectively, in 2021.
I recently found myself in Itaewon and decided to walk by where the Itaewon crushing disaster happened. As I walked in to Itaewon I could quickly see how this tragedy has become fully politicized with the Korean left trying to weaponize it like they did the Sewol tragedy against former President Park Geun-hye. Near Noksopyeong Station which is located at the entrance to Itaewon, there is a protest tent set up with a bunch of signs denouncing the government. I did not walk over to their tent or try to take pictures of them because I was getting the evil eye from the angry looking activists standing by the sidewalk. I just continued to walk by them to towards the Hamilton Hotel.
Map showing where the Itaewon crushing disaster happened in the alley on the left side of the Hamilton Hotel. World Food Street is located behind the Hamilton Hotel.
I could not approach the alley from the front of the Hamilton Hotel because there was a protest going on with the riot police out in force. So I walked up a nearby alley to the World Food Street that is the road that runs behind the Hamilton Hotel. This street is lined with restaurants and bars that would have been packed on Halloween night:
From the main road that runs through Itaewon there are multiple alleys, some even smaller than the one the tragedy occurred at that accesses World Food Street. Here is an example of one of these small alleys:
Seeing the area in person it is easy to conclude that what caused the crushing tragedy to happen where it did is its proximity to Itaewon Station. There are two paths along each side of the Hamilton Hotel which is the quickest way to access World Food Street from Itaewon Station. The alley where the tragedy happened was the smallest of the two and the closest to the station. It is easy to imagine how people walking up and down this alley due to its easy access to the subway station caused it to become overcrowded. Below is a picture I took from the top of the alleyway where the tragedy occurred:
The police would not allow me to walk down the alley, but I wouldn’t have tried to anyway due to the protest going on at the entrance to the alley. Seeing the alley in person it looks actually smaller than it does in photographs. From the top of the alleyway I could see how slopped it is. Witnesses the night of the tragedy reported a group of people began pushing people down the alley. It was easy for me to imagine a group of drunks trying to walk down World Food Street getting frustrated by being backed up by the crowd moving through the alleyway and deciding to aggressively push by them causing people to fall. The slope of the alleyway is enough to cause a domino effect of people falling on top of each other if people on the top lose their balance.
What amazes me the most about this tragedy is that the police received reports of overcrowding near the Hamilton Hotel four hours before the tragedy happened. There is literally a police station across the street from the Hamilton Hotel:
Why didn’t anyone from the police station walk across the street and respond to the reports? What were they doing during those four hours? Did the 119 operators even call to let them know? Did anyone walk in to the station and tell the police what was going on? If someone did what was the response of the police? These are questions that should be simple to get answers to.
Being on the ground and looking at the site only further validated to me how easily avoidable this entire tragedy was. Police responding to the alleyway and controlling pedestrian traffic to make it one way probably would have prevented the disaster. Just closing Itaewon Station and making people walk from subway stations further away from the center of Itaewon would have dispersed the crowds enough from this narrow alleyway that this tragedy would have been prevented as well. Hopefully some lessons are learned in regards to crowd control planning by local authorities, it is just unfortunate it cost the lives of 158 people to learn this lesson.
I have driven on this expressway many times and it is amazing that apparently an accident with a garbage truck caused a fire this big:
This photo of a fire on an expressway in Gwacheon on Dec. 29, 2022, is provided by a news reader. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
At least five people were killed and 37 others injured, three of them seriously, Thursday in a noise-barrier tunnel fire along an expressway in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, fire authorities said.
The blaze was reported to have occurred at 1:49 p.m. inside the noise tunnel in Gwacheon along the Second Gyeongin Expressway that connects the western port city of Incheon to Seongnam City, the authorities said.
Fire authorities initially announced the fire started after a collision between a bus and a garbage truck but later said they would need further investigation to determine the exact cause, leaving open the possibility that the truck alone may have been responsible for the deadly blaze.
The Han River in Seoul is covered with ice on Dec. 25, 2022, in this photo provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration.
The Han River in Seoul was declared frozen by South Korea’s state weather agency for the first time this winter Sunday, as a cold snap has continued for days.
The first freeze of the river was observed on the river running through the capital city more than two weeks earlier than previous years, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).
According to the KMA, the river is officially frozen when it has thick ice in a 100-meter-long area between the Han River Bridge’s second and fourth piers. The bridge links Yongsan Ward and Dongjak Ward
In previous winters, the first freeze on the river was declared around Jan. 10. Last winter, the Han River never officially froze.
On the Airport line (AREX), an adorable mascot doll reserves the seats for pregnant women. Cute and subtle way of encouraging etiquette. Good 눈치 in action. pic.twitter.com/ic3JuIxork
One month after Itaewon tragedy Flowers and messages are covered with plastic amid rain at a makeshift memorial space near the site of the Itaewon tragedy in Seoul on Nov. 28, 2022. The Halloween crowd crush left 158 people dead. (Yonhap)
