Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) vowed yesterday to improve the quality of the city’s roads and declared that the city would set higher standards, making sure there were no more bumpy or pot-holed roads in Taipei.
Taipei City’s Department of Public Works said the government would finish the road maintenance work by the end of this year — including paving with new tar and decreasing by 30 percent the number of manholes on Zhonghua Road Sec 2, Nankang Road Sec 2 and Linsen S Road, to be used as “demonstration roads.”
“The road quality in Taipei City is far worse than in some underdeveloped countries. The uneven roads bring shame on the city and it’s unacceptable,” Hau said yesterday during a municipal meeting at Taipei City Hall.
Hau said he was dissatisfied over the department’s road maintenance works and said the quality of the roads was so poor that even ambassadors complained about it to him.
He pledged to set higher standards for road quality, and form a “road crew” to review road maintenance work every month.
The department said last month it began offering training courses for road maintenance workers and contractors on road paving, pipeline digging and other skills.
The department also adopted higher standards on the purchase of tar — aiming to prevent the use of recycled tar.
The city government also put a number of restraints on road digging projects and now requires contractors to apply for permits before proceeding with road work.
Hau said the city government would double the fines for those who failed to get permits from the department.
In response to a city councilor’s accusation that contractors rushed road maintenance work on Donghu Road to avoid the department’s examination, Hau said he would personally check the maintenance work on the road before giving approval.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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