Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday the government was set to allocate a budget of NT$40 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the construction of a new mountain highway connecting Suao in the northeast and Hualien in the east.
The statement followed a decision by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications late last month to scrap a controversial Suhua Expressway project and instead propose building a less ambitious mountain highway that may intersect with parts of the existing highway.
The government will tender work on the proposed highway by the end of the year after the project passes an environmental impact assessment, while some latitude will be kept for future upgrades, he said.
PHOTO: YANG YI-MIN, TAIPEI TIMES
In his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) solicited grassroots opinion on the matter on Sunday while campaigning in Hualien County for Wang Ting-sheng (王廷升), the KMT candidate in an upcoming legislative by-election.
He relayed grassroots calls in favor of the mountain highway at the weekly coordination meeting attended by Ma and Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), the heads of the Executive Yuan, the Legislative Yuan and the KMT.
Wu said in the meeting that an additional NT$1.8 billion would be allocated to improve the Suao-Hualien Highway that cuts through coastal cliffs and is vulnerable to landslides.
Improving transportation links between the two areas on the east coast has long stirred controversy.
An expensive expressway was proposed more than a decade ago but has faced strong opposition from environmental experts and activists who said it would destroy the flora, fauna and ecological balance in the area.
With many unconvinced that simply repairing the highway would solve Hualien’s transportation woes, the mountain highway was proposed as a compromise.
At present, Hualien County can be accessed from the north by the mostly single lane Suao-Hualien Highway and from the west by a windy road that cuts through the central mountains.
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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