South Korea Trades Dirty Expressway for Amazing 6km Greenway

The location for the modern capitol of South Korea was chosen over 600 years ago. The story of Seoul begins with a new dynasty, a monk, and a legendary stream. Around 1394, a monk sent to find the location for a new capitol city came upon an area surrounded by low mountains. The feature that gave the land the proper feng shui was a small stream, the Cheonggyecheon, running from the mountains into the mighty Han River. Swayed by the small stream, the monk convinced the early Joseon rulers that this was the perfect site for the capitol. It was to become Seoul.

However, as Seoul grew, the stream became increasingly polluted. Eventually, it was deemed a health hazard. Middle-aged Koreans today remember it as nothing more than a sewer. Finally, the order was given to pave over Cheonggyecheon stream. In 1968–South Korea’s industrial heyday–former dictator Park Chung-hee ordered an expressway over top of the ancient stream. And so it was… until the new century.

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In Korea today, cars and industrial pollution are losing favor to green spaces and natural beauty. While he was mayor of Seoul, newly elected President Lee Myung-bak gave the surprising order to tear down the historic expressway and restore the legendary Cheonggyecheon stream.

Recycling the expressway

In disassembling the expressway, an amazing 95% of the structure’s cement and 100% of the steel was carefully salvaged and recycled. Gradually, the Cheonggyecheon was unearthed.

The stream had been the heart of the city, and so as it was uncovered archaeologists worked feverishly, fishing for forgotten secrets of ancient life. Ancient coins emerged, Joseon period shoes and pottery, a centuries-old stone bridge.

A new green life in Seoul — the Cheonggyecheon stream reborn

Finally, in 2005, the Cheonggyecheon stream was opened to the public — a stunningly beautiful 6 kilometer-long greenway and sparkling stream in the heart of an urban jungle.

Today, the Cheonggyecheon stream is a gorgeous green walkway. Along the water’s edge, school children giggle and play; families picnic; couples stroll; elderly pace the bridges, gazing in amazement at the waters that they once knew as little more than a polluted sewer. Life along the Cheonggyecheon has come back and in certain glimpses it isn’t hard to imagine the stream as it was 600 years ago.

Not 100% green?

It must be said that the Cheonggyecheon stream is not entirely green. The stream is seasonal. Therefore, for most of the year water must be pumped from the nearby Han River. The water flows through the stream and back into the Han.

However, where there was once a smog-choked expressway, there now stretches a breathtaking and refreshingly pristine greenway. I’ll make that trade any day.

Further reading:

• Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project website
• Download a Discovery documentary about the restoration project here.

Image credit: stari4ek via Wikipedia Commons, under a Creative Commons license

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