56% of Gwangju Citizens "Don't Know the 'Daejabo City'"

Importance of 'Line Connectivity' After Opening of Urban Railway Line 2
64.4% Use Private Cars When Going to Complex Shopping Malls
City Council Traffic Policy Survey... Need for Promotion

'Daejabo Urban Policy' Awareness Survey Graph. [Image provided by Gwangju City Council]

Gwangju City, which is promoting the ‘Daejabo City’ policy as a key project in the second half of the 8th term of the elected government, found that more than half of its citizens responded that they were ‘unaware’ of the policy, indicating a lack of sufficient publicity.

According to the Gwangju City Council on the 3rd, a public opinion survey conducted among citizens regarding Gwangju’s transportation policy showed that 56.9% of citizens supported the promotion of the ‘Daejabo City policy,’ but more than half, 56.6%, answered that they ‘did not know’ about Daejabo City. In particular, 67.7% of people in their 20s and 74.3% of people in their 30s responded that they were unaware, indicating low policy awareness among the younger generation.

The survey covered overall transportation policy topics including △awareness of Daejabo (public transportation, bicycles, walking) city △satisfaction with public transportation (urban rail, city buses, etc.) △bicycle use and walking satisfaction △recognition and evaluation of Gwangju’s transportation policy.

In this survey, there was a high demand for transportation reorganization following the opening of Urban Rail Line 2 as a necessary future transportation policy for Gwangju. Regarding ‘improvements to enhance the convenience of city buses,’ efficient route reorganization (45.6%) accounted for the highest percentage, followed by shorter intervals between buses (24.9%) and adherence to bus schedules (17%). For the ‘most needed transportation policy after the opening of Urban Rail Line 2,’ route linkage between transportation modes (39.6%) and improvement of the transfer system (33.9%) were selected.

Additionally, the ‘bicycle usage rate’ was very low at only 14.3% overall. As an improvement measure to promote bicycle use, 37% of respondents chose ‘strengthening the safety of bicycle roads.’ Regarding ‘the mode of transportation used when visiting a complex shopping mall,’ private cars (64.4%) overwhelmingly accounted for the highest percentage, followed by public transportation (28%) and taxis (5.6%).

Park Pil-soon, Chair of the Industry and Construction Committee of the Gwangju City Council, stated, “Gwangju City urgently needs to prepare measures for city bus route reorganization and linkage between transportation modes,” adding, “We must also actively respond to the anticipated traffic chaos after the opening of complex shopping malls.” Chair Park further added, “We plan to actively utilize this public opinion survey as an opportunity to review Gwangju’s transportation policy and establish future policies that citizens can support and empathize with.”

Meanwhile, this public opinion survey was conducted by the Gwangju City Council through the Korea Policy Research Institute using a structured questionnaire via telephone interviews. It targeted 700 men and women aged 18 or older residing in Gwangju from September 30 to October 31. The survey had a 95% confidence level with a sampling error of ±3.70 percentage points and a response rate of 9.12%.