Make democracy work for you
After two years, several twists and turns, and the efforts of Taipei City councilors Yang Ching-yu (楊靜宇) and Chen Hsien-wei (陳賢蔚), several parking spaces have been added along both sides of a section of the slow lane (about 100m) at the intersection of Zhiyuan Second Road and Xian Street in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投). In early May last year, these spaces were converted to diagonal parking spaces — and, to great surprise, only took two days to complete. By doing so, 25cm to 40cm have been freed up.
During rush hour, entering and exiting parallel spaces next to slow lanes is a major frustration. Since traffic volume is heavy at those times, major or minor fender benders can and do occur. The much more serious wrecks can be left to the imagination.
Diagonal parking spaces along slow lanes have three major advantages: It is easier to get in and out of them, and line of sight is not impeded, so drivers can see incoming traffic or pedestrians and avoid collisions — this is called “safety.” The center lanes have been widened 25cm to 40cm. This is what convenience is all about.
However, up to 90 percent of the parking spaces dotting the sides of slower, outside lanes are still parallel spaces. Logic would have it that when roads are repaved, this would be a perfect time to change them to diagonal parking, but this is sadly impossible for civil engineers. Until late last year, Beitou has had multiple sections of roads repaved, but the same old parallel parking spaces remain.
Many in the public sector continue to hold fast to a pessimistic maxim of: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well, it is broke. If we could place more importance on public opinion, work toward improving society and adopt many of the good ideas out there, this would be a boon for ordinary people in Taiwan’s democratic society.
Yang Li-yi
Taipei
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