The Taipei City Government yesterday said it would launch a drive to encourage motorists to yield to pedestrians ahead of September’s Deaflympics, the biggest sports event ever to be hosted by the city.
To provide a safer environment during the Deaflympics, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) urged residents to help make Taipei more convenient for people with handicaps and said the Taipei Police Department needed to clamp down on traffic violations.
The department will boost the number of traffic police on the streets to promote its drive. Drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians will be fined between NT$1,200 and NT$3,600 starting in July, Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢), commissioner of Taipei City Transportation Department, said yesterday at Taipei City Hall.
Luo said pedestrians had the right of way and motorists would be fined for failing to yield to pedestrians even in cases where the pedestrians are in violation of traffic rules.
The department will also impose tighter traffic control around the Taipei Arena and other games’ locations during the Deaflympics, he added.
The Deaflympics will be held between Sept. 5 and Sept. 15. More than 4,000 athletes from 81 countries are expected to compete.
Hau said that hosting international events was one of the best ways to increase a city’s visibility and that this year’s Deaflympics provided a great opportunity to promote Taipei’s image.
Hau said that traffic accidents involving athletes had been a problem at previous Deaflympics hosted by other countries and that residents should help promote Taipei as a friendly and civilized place by yielding to pedestrians.
Taiwan ranked fifth among all participating countries at the last Deaflympics, held in Melbourne, Australia, taking home nine gold medals, four silvers and three bronzes.
Meanwhile, the city said yesterday that Hau would leave for the US today on a 10-day trip to Taipei’s sister cities. Hau will visit San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle and seek cooperation with local high-tech companies.
Taipei has had sister city ties with San Francisco for 40 years and Los Angeles for 30 years. The mayor will also visit Cisco Systems, Intel and Microsoft to seek cooperation with the three companies on information and communications infrastructure in Taipei.
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