Case Study: Cheonggyecheon; Seoul, Korea

Location: Jung Gu (Central District), Seoul, South Korea

Population: 10.1 million
Metro: 25.6 million
Extent: 5.8 km (Length) 292,000 m(Area)
Right-of-Way: 50 m
Context: Mixed-Use (Residential/Commercial)
Cost: 386,739 million KRW (345.2 million USD)
Funding: Seoul Metropolitan Government
Project Sponsors: Seoul Metropolitan Government

Overview
The Seoul Metropolitan Government decided to dismantle the 10-lane roadway and the 4-lane elevated
highway that carried over 170,000 vehicles daily along the Cheonggyecheon stream. The transformed street
encourages transit use over private car use, and more environmentally sustainable, pedestrian oriented public
space. The project contributed to a 15.1% increase in bus ridership and a 3.3% increase in subway ridership
between 2003 and 2008. The revitalized street now attracts 64,000 visitors daily.

Goals

Improve air quality, water quality, and quality of life.

Reconnect the two parts of the city that were previously divided by road infrastructure.

Lessons Learned
Innovative governance and interagency coordination were critical to the process.

Public engagement, with residents, local merchants, and entrepreneurs, was important to
streamlining the process.

Reducing travel-lane capacity resulted in a decrease in vehicle traffic.

Before
 AFTER

Involvement
Public Agencies
Central Government, Seoul Municipality, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Cultural Heritage
Administration

Private Groups and Partnerships

Cheonggyecheon Research Group

Citizen Associations and Unions

Citizen’s Committee for Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project

Designers and Engineers

Seoul Development Institute urban design team, Dongmyung Eng, Daelim E&C

Close to 4,000 meetings were held with residents. A “Wall of Hope” program was developed to
encourage involvement and resulted in 20,000 participants.
Evaluation

Key Elements
Removal of elevated highway concrete structure.

Daylighting of a previously covered urban stream.

Creation of an extensive new open space along the daylighted stream.

Creation of pedestrian amenities and recreational spaces (two plazas, eight thematic places).

Construction of 21 new bridges, reconnecting the urban fabric.

Project Timeline

After 3 and a half years of work, Cheonggyecheon, has become one of the most popular green spaces in the city. One would
be hard-pressed to identify the location of the idyllic watershed in photographs from just 15 years ago when the stream was
culverted by a double-decker 8 lane expressway. What was once chocked from sunlight by layers of concrete infrastructure
is now a healthy watershed replete with dragonflies, pelicans, and innumerable native plant species (marking an increase in
overall biodiversity of 639%) and teeming with schools of fish.