The grand opening of the Taipei City Hall Bus Station will be delayed until next month, the Taipei City Government said, acknowledging that traffic would pose a challenges in the area after the station opens.
The bus station, located at the intersection of Zhongxiao E Road and Keelung Road, was initially scheduled to begin operating last month, a plan that was pushed back to this month before being delayed again.
Taipei City Department of Transportation Commissioner Lo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢) said the department and the operator, Uni-president Development Corp, were finalizing the details of the building and the bus routes, seeking to minimize the impact on area traffic when the bus station opens.
The intersection is one of the busiest in Taipei City.
The bus station is now scheduled to begin operations on Aug. 5. It will serve as a transportation hub for 14 bus companies, with services to Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Yilan.
The planning of the bus station dates back to when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was Taipei mayor 12 years ago. The city planned to build four major bus terminals in the city. The Taipei Bus Station on Chengde Road and Huayin Street was launched last year.
Two more bus terminals will be situated in the Muzha and Yuanshan areas.
While the city government said it was confident it would open the station on schedule, it said it was facing problems similar to those encountered when the Taipei Bus Station was opened, including heavy congestion in the area and concerns about operators making excess profits.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chen Yu-mei (陳玉梅) said the new bus station in Xinyi District also has a small terminal and waiting area. The station takes up about 2,400 ping (7,934m²) of the 43,000 ping building. The 31-story building also features a shopping mall, restaurants and a hotel, which are scheduled to open in October.
“The bus station occupies only 5.7 percent of the entire building, making it just a facility of the hotel and shopping mall. Controlling traffic and crowds in the area will be a great challenge for the station operators,” she said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
EVA Air is prohibiting the use of portable chargers on board all flights starting from Saturday, while China Airlines is advising passengers not to use them, following the lead of South Korean airlines. Current regulations prohibit portable chargers and lithium batteries from check-in luggage and require them to be properly packed in carry-on baggage, EVA Air said. To improve onboard safety, portable chargers and spare lithium batteries would be prohibited from use on all fights starting on Saturday, it said. Passengers are advised to fully charge electronic devices before boarding and use the AC and USB charging outlets at their seat, it said. South
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
WAR SIMULATION: The developers of the board game ‘2045’ consulted experts and analysts, and made maps based on real-life Chinese People’s Liberation Army exercises To stop invading Chinese forces seizing Taiwan, board gamer Ruth Zhong chooses the nuclear option: Dropping an atomic bomb on Taipei to secure the nation’s freedom and her victory. The Taiwanese board game 2045 is a zero-sum contest of military strategy and individual self-interest that puts players on the front lines of a simulated Chinese attack. Their battlefield game tactics would determine the theoretical future of Taiwan, which in the real world faces the constant threat of a Chinese invasion. “The most interesting part of this game is that you have to make continuous decisions based on the evolving situation,