Freeways are to be toll-free during the Double Ten National Day holiday from 12am to 5am during the first three days and from 12am to 10am on the last day of the long weekend, the Freeway Bureau announced on Sunday.
The Double Ten National Day holiday this year is from Oct. 10 to Oct. 13.
All freeway drivers are to be charged NT$0.9 per kilometer during the holiday, the bureau said, adding that the regular weekend policy of a toll-free first 20km is to be suspended.
Drivers taking the route between the Hsinchu and Yenchao (燕巢) interchanges would receive an additional 20 percent discount on tolls, it said.
Drivers would need to observe the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) policy on certain freeway sections on certain days.
On Oct. 10, HOV hours would be enforced from 7am to 12pm on southbound ramps of the Neihu (內湖) and Toufen (頭份) interchanges of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) and ramps of the Mucha (木柵) and Hsiangshan (香山) interchanges of the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3), the bureau said.
On Oct. 10 and 11, HOV hours would be enforced from 7am to 12pm on southbound ramps of the Nangang (南港), Shihding (石碇) and Pinglin (坪林) interchanges of the Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway (Freeway No. 5), it said.
On Oct. 12 and 13, HOV hours would be enforced from 2pm to 9pm on northbound ramps of the Suao (蘇澳), Luodong (羅東) and Yilan (宜蘭) interchanges of Freeway No. 5, it said, adding that the HOV hours on these two days could change depending on northbound traffic.
The bureau said it would also enforce other measures to facilitate holiday traffic, such as peak hours, closing certain southbound and northbound ramps on Freeway No. 1 and Freeway No. 3, opening freeway shoulders to traffic on several sections and activating meters on a few ramps to strictly regulate the traffic entering the lanes.
Yesterday, the bureau started charging drivers for the cleanup of debris or items that fall from vehicles on freeways.
Drivers are exempt from paying the fee if it takes less than 30 minutes to remove the debris, the bureau said.
If the cleanup time is 30 minutes or more, the driver would need to pay NT$3,000 per traffic lane closed for every 30 minutes that workers are cleaning up, it added.
More than 40,000 cases of freeway debris are recorded each year, the bureau said, adding that the debris not only disrupts traffic, but also causes secondary accidents.
About 7,000 cases involve broken tire treads, it added.
In addition, the Hsinchu Motor Vehicle Office has been entrusted by the Directorate-General of Highways to publish a pamphlet in March next year that would instruct drivers how to properly tie up goods on a cargo truck, the bureau said.
Without completed infrastructure and training, the expedited sale of new F-16s from the US could become a burden rather than a help, a military official said yesterday. Reuters on Thursday last week reported that Washington is looking to accelerate the delivery of 66 new F-16C/D Block 70 aircraft in response to what it sees as increasing intimidation by Beijing. Under the terms of the original US$8 billion deal signed in 2019, the US is expected to deliver a single-seater and double-seater for testing next year, then deliver the 66 new aircraft in batches of four or five from 2024 to 2026. The officials
SLIGHTS: Beijing intends to display pro-unification messages and prominently feature Taiwanese volunteers in its propaganda videos, an official said Taiwanese officials are poised to boycott next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics, an official with knowledge of the matter said yesterday, citing concerns that China would slight Taiwan during the Games. This year’s Winter Olympics are scheduled to open on Friday next week amid a diplomatic boycott by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, New Zealand, the UK and the US in response to China’s human rights abuses against Uighurs in Xinjiang and crackdowns on democracy advocates in Hong Kong. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that a Cabinet-appointed task force has determined that Taiwan’s delegation would abstain from the opening and
INCREASED COOPERATION: Part of the funding is to be used to further the aims of a Taiwan-US human resources development platform launched in 2015, a source said An increase of ￥100 million (US$878,765) to Japan’s annual foreign affairs budget is for “advancing the Japan-Taiwan relationship,” information published on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Web site showed. The ministry’s budget for last year was ￥1.7 billion; it was increased to ￥1.8 billion for this year. The ministry wrote that the additional funding was to be used for “cooperating with allies and like-minded countries to safeguard the universal values of the international community.” Regarding Taiwan specifically, the ministry said that it was “responding to an increasingly complex security and economic environment,” and that it aimed to “strengthen diplomacy and cooperation
A majority of Japanese feel friendly toward Taiwan, with almost half of respondents in a poll saying that they want to visit the country after COVID-19 travel curbs are eased, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan said yesterday. The office said that 75.9 percent of respondents said they feel friendly toward Taiwan, citing as reasons the friendliness and politeness of Taiwanese, the long history of ties between the two nations, and the strength of bilateral trade. More than one-quarter of respondents — 26.4 percent — said they had traveled to Taiwan, while 47.8 percent said they would like to
RSS