The Taipei Rapid Transport Corp (TRTC) in December introduced Hello Kitty-themed cable cars to Taipei’s Maokong Gondola in a bid to increase the popularity of a line that has bled money for years, but the line will still lose over NT$79 million (US$2.62 million) this year and next year, the company said.
When the cartoon character is removed, the company added, the gondola could lose up to NT$96 million a year.
The gondola has been criticized as a bottomless pit for city funds, losing between NT$80 million and NT$100 million annually since 2010.
Photo: Wu Liang-i, Taipei Times
Even when the Taipei City Government capitalized on the popularity of a panda cub born at the Taipei Zoo last year by using a panda theme to promote the gondola, the line still lost NT$80 million to NT$90 million.
Taipei City Councilor Chen Yen-po (陳彥伯) of the New Party castigated the city government for legally designating the gondola as public transportation when it was built, avoiding rigorous environmental review.
This ensures the gondola’s cheap ticket price cannot be easily adjusted, he said.
In comparison, tickets for a similar gondola at Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) are more than five times as expensive, even though the line is shorter, Chen said.
“Former mayor Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九) left behind an absolute mess,” Chen said. “As long as Maokong Gondola tickets cost only NT$50, there’s no way to make a profit.”
In response, TRTC general manager Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光) said the Hello Kitty cars do boost the ridership of the gondola and that it has spurred the TRTC to extend its one-year contract with the Taiwan representative of the Japanese cartoon character producer Sanrio until June next year.
Past research by the city government’s transportation department has found that the gondola tickets’ ideal price point would be NT$70, an increase of NT$20.
However, this increase would only raise NT$20 million in new revenue, far short of the annual losses, the research found.
The research also suggested that if the ticket price increases, the gondola’s passenger load would drop, limiting the amount of new funds which could be raised.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS