The geology of the Muzha (木柵) area was never able to sustain the Maokong Gondola, and the cable car system should be permanently terminated for the sake of public safety and environmental protection, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors said yesterday.
DPP councilors Wu Su-yao (吳思瑤) and Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) said the Public Construction Commission of the Executive Yuan has completed an evaluation report that opposes re-opening the gondola as construction of the system has caused irreparable geological damage to the area.
“The erosion that occurred under the support pillar revealed the danger the gondola poses to the area. It’s time to pronounce the gondola dead and end the nightmare for local residents,” Hsu told a press conference yesterday at Taipei City Hall.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The commission, however, did not publish the results of the evaluation report in order to protect the cable car system, a major municipal project pushed through by former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the councilors said.
Gondola service was suspended on Oct. 1 after mudslides eroded the ground beneath one of the system’s support pillars. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and other city officials blamed the mudslides on heavy rains brought by a series of recent typhoons, and said the gondola’s operation was suspended to ease unnecessary anxiety about its safety.
Wu condemned Ma for dodging an environmental assessment of the project before it was constructed by licensing it as a “major transportation construction project.”
Wu also urged Hau to stop defending Ma’s poor municipal project.
“Saying goodbye to the Maokong gondola forever is a courageous move that will prevent further damage,” Wu said.
In response, the commission issued a press release late yesterday denying the existence of the evaluation report, but acknowledged that it had sent members to inspect erosion under the system’s support pillars on Oct. 2.
Hau said yesterday that the city government had invited a group of civil engineers to conduct an evaluation on the gondola’s stability.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its