Taipei is to tilt the balance of space available on the city’s streets toward cyclists, Taipei City Government Traffic Engineering Office Director Tiger Chen (陳學台) said yesterday.
He made the comments at a Department of Public Works event to announce the widening of 4km of sidewalk next year that is set to include stretches of Heping W Road, Xinsheng S Road and Roosevelt Road.
The roadways are to be narrowed to make room for more sidewalk space, which is to be partly lined with trees and include bicycle paths, benches and public art.
“Past road design has mainly centered on automobiles, largely ignoring the needs of pedestrians and cyclists” Chen said.
While road design would continue to take into account the needs of scooters, a significant amount of space would be allocated to pedestrians and cyclists, he said.
With the increasing popularity of the city’s YouBike public bicycle rental system, the use of bicycles has increased 24 percent since 2011, he said.
Given the city’s goal of increasing bicycle use to 12 percent of all traffic use by 2020, Chen said the city would move to accommodate and encourage bicycles at the expense of scooters and cars.
For example, the sidewalk expansion along Xinsheng S Road would be accomplished largely by eliminating moped parking space along the road, he said.
The planned sidewalk expansion is an addition to existing plans to construct a lattice-work of three horizontal and three vertical bicycle paths across the city center, New Construction Office Director Huang Chih-feng (黃治峰) said.
Setting up separate bicycle paths would help improve safety, he added.
Police statistics show traffic accidents involving bicycles have increased 41 percent since 2010.
A contract for the sidewalk expansion project is to be awarded by January, with construction to be completed by the end of the year, the Public Works Department said.
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,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
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