Environmentalists expressed opposition yesterday to the government’s plan to build a new mountainside roadway linking Suao (蘇澳) and Hualien, arguing that it would be as damaging to the environment as the mothballed Suao-Hualien freeway project.
Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) called the plan “old wine in a new bottle,” saying it would follow a route that is almost identical to that of the freeway project.
Pan said the new project’s impact on the environment would not be any less serious just because the project has a different name.
The original plan was to build a freeway between Suao and Hualien to replace the winding roadway that cuts through the coastal mountains and is often blocked by landslides during periods of heavy rain. That project, which would have required extensive drilling of tunnels, sparked great controversy because of its potential impact on the surrounding ecosystem and was strongly opposed by environmental groups.
It was ultimately rejected by the Environmental Protection Administration’s environmental impact assessment panel in April.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said on Wednesday that the government was planning an alternative to the existing coastal Suhua Highway.
Planning for the new project is expected to be completed in the second half of next year, after which an environmental impact assessment will be conducted, Mao said.
Mao said the new road, which is likely to begin in Suao, Ilan County, and end in Chongde (崇德), Hualien County, would probably be an expressway rather than a freeway.
Hualien County Government Secretary-General Huang Chi-pin said yesterday that residents of Hualien were expecting a road to be built on which they could travel safely and it did not matter what it was called.
Huang said that he hoped the project would be implemented as soon as possible as it would improve the wellbeing of Hualien residents.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
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
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS