Taipei City buses will be running on the off-peak timetable and the MRT operating on its weekend and holiday schedule throughout the Lunar New Year holiday from today to Friday, the city’s Department of Transportation said yesterday.
Buses serving mountainous areas will be running on the weekend and holiday schedule. Shuttle services that run only on weekdays will operate according to the usual schedule.
PANDA FEVER
Buses 120, 121, 122 and G1 to the Taipei Zoo will run more frequently as the opening of the Panda Hall is expected to draw big crowds.
The MRT Muzha Line will also run more frequently to accommodate visitors to the zoo during the holidays, but all other MRT lines will run on the weekend and holiday schedule. The normal operating schedule will resume on Feb. 2.
TAXI FARES
Meanwhile, Taipei taxis will not add a Lunar New Year surcharge this year in the hope of attracting more business during the holiday period. Cab fares will start at NT$70 for the first 1.25km as usual.
The department said passengers could call the city’s 1999 hotline or the traffic division at 02-2394-9007 or 02-2321-9166 to report any taxi drivers who try to overcharge customers during the holiday.
More information on transportation arrangements is available on the Web site of the city’s public transportation office, www.pto.taipei.gov.tw, or at the public transportation inquiries Web site, www.5284.com.tw.
The Public Bus Hotline can be reached at 2729-1181.
Callers outside Taipei City can dial 02-2720-8889 for more information.
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