A mere six months after the Taipei City Government opened the bicycle lane along Dunhua Road, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) has announced that the lane will henceforth be reserved for cyclists only on weekends. Scooters and cars will be allowed to use it on weekdays, making the bicycle lane practically useless to cyclists. Cyclists have shown no enthusiasm for the lane, residents are unhappy with it and motorists have not lent their cooperation.
This was a long-expected failure. The original intent with this bicycle lane, which cost about NT$100 million (US$3.14 million), was to promote commuting by bicycle to save energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Regrettably, the city government didn’t hold public hearings with local residents, cyclists and drivers before building the lane. Instead, a few traffic department officials came up with a plan that resulted in a flawed bicycle lane monopolized by scooters and cars, making it impossible for cyclists to use.
Of course cyclists were not enthusiastic about it and continued to ride on the sidewalk. Drivers also complained about traffic congestion as car lanes were deprived of space to make way for the bike lanes. Afraid that this fiasco would affect the year-end mayoral election, the government has now tried to maintain some semblance of face by turning the project into a bicycle lane for leisure use on weekends.
The problem will remain, however, even on weekends, because scooters and cars will continue to swerve in and out of the lane and cars will continue to use it as a parking space. In practice, the bicycle lane is ready to be scrapped: The painted concrete paving is slippery, the relief markings make it uneven and the width is inconsistent. Its existence reminds Taipei residents of the incompetence of the people who planned it.
Almost every city in Taiwan is developing a bicycle lane system, but Taipei is the only city that has failed so spectacularly. Taipei City has several decades of experience in planning, building and running MRT lines, but the Wenshan-Neihu line is the only one that has problems. Cable cars are not a high-tech product, and the cable car at Sun Moon Lake has already been in operation for some time without problems or complaints. When it comes to the Maokong Gondola, however, people are afraid to use it.
The irregularities that have occurred in connection with these three public construction projects highlight the Taipei City Government’s inability to make plans and its ineptitude at implementing and supervising them.
Flawed decision-making is even more frightening than corruption. Civil servants taking several million dollars is bad enough, but the Taipei City Government has wasted hundreds of millions on inappropriate policymaking. It owes Taipei residents an apology for its preposterous planning, and someone should take responsibility.
If the city government will not change its ways, the city council should hold it responsible, the Control Yuan should investigate its oversights and residents should display their dissatisfaction with these manmade disasters in the year-end mayoral election.
US President Donald Trump has gotten off to a head-spinning start in his foreign policy. He has pressured Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States, threatened to take over the Panama Canal, urged Canada to become the 51st US state, unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America” and announced plans for the United States to annex and administer Gaza. He has imposed and then suspended 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico for their roles in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, while at the same time increasing tariffs on China by 10
As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice? Many in China obviously
US President Donald Trump last week announced plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on eight countries. As Taiwan, a key hub for semiconductor manufacturing, is among them, the policy would significantly affect the country. In response, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) dispatched two officials to the US for negotiations, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) board of directors convened its first-ever meeting in the US. Those developments highlight how the US’ unstable trade policies are posing a growing threat to Taiwan. Can the US truly gain an advantage in chip manufacturing by reversing trade liberalization? Is it realistic to
Last week, 24 Republican representatives in the US Congress proposed a resolution calling for US President Donald Trump’s administration to abandon the US’ “one China” policy, calling it outdated, counterproductive and not reflective of reality, and to restore official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, enter bilateral free-trade agreement negotiations and support its entry into international organizations. That is an exciting and inspiring development. To help the US government and other nations further understand that Taiwan is not a part of China, that those “one China” policies are contrary to the fact that the two countries across the Taiwan Strait are independent and
RSS