The Acting Director of Hong Kong’s Electrical and Mechanical Services Department holds a bicycle banner at the launch of the second National Ecology Day: the placard was later revealed to be “just a gimmick”

When Chan Pak-cheung, Acting Director of Hong Kong’s Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD), held up a bicycle placard at a group photo to launch China’s National Ecology Day in Hong Kong on Thursday, cycle activists in the city cheered. Did this signal a shift in policy? Could urban cycling now have front-row cabinet support?

The picture of Chan was shared on social media and sparked conversations about a potential shift in the government’s notorious “anti-bicycle” urban transport policy.

Sadly for the campaigners, the government now says the bike image had no significance or meaning.

In response to questions from Transit Jam, an EMSD spokesperson said the foamboard placards were “just a gimmick”, handed out by the organisers for the photo opportunity and that the bicycle placard in particular had “no implications for policy at all.”

Meanwhile responses from both the event organiser Environment and Ecology Bureau (EEB) and the city’s transport officials fell back on the government’s long-standing position that cycling was not supported in urban areas.

EEB said the government only supported cycling “under suitable circumstances” and “where road safety conditions and circumstances permit”.

Officials at Transport Department (TD) echoed EEB’s response, adding that cycling was not recommended in urban areas because of heavy traffic, crowded roads, narrow roads and “on-street loading and unloading activities”.

“Due to road safety considerations, the Government does not encourage the public to use bicycles as a mode of transport in the urban area,” said a TD statement.

Campaigners expressed disappointment at the “gimmick” revelations and called the use of bicycle imagery “greenwash”.

Martin Turner, chairman of the Hong Kong Cycling Alliance, said the government’s “lying flat” on cycling was “a terrible waste of our city’s great potential”.

“While some departments – EMSD and CEDD [Civil Engineering and Development Department] – and many individual civil servants do have a clue, overall policy remains firmly against active mobility… unless your journey happens to be entirely along a cycle track in the New Territories,” he said.

For its part in reducing reliance on mechanised transport, TD told Transit Jam it will consider promoting walking as a sustainable alternative to driving or cycling in urban areas.

“With the aim of promoting ‘Walk in HK’ and creating a pedestrian-friendly environment, we will accord priority to considering optimising the environment for pedestrians in suitable space in urban areas to encourage walking,” TD said.

Walk in HK was a $13.9 million government initiative largely discredited after three high-profile pedestrian killings on the pavements of the two main study streets and subsequent accusations that the government covered up the scheme’s failures by deleting the project website and contract information, later lying to journalists about the erasure.