The Freeway Bureau yesterday announced a series of measures to facilitate freeway traffic during the Lunar New Year holiday, with the highest traffic volume expected on Feb. 7, the fourth day of the holiday.
Southbound freeway traffic would be heavy from Lunar New Year’s Eve to noon on Feb. 7, bureau Deputy Director-General Wu Mu-fu (吳木富) said.
Starting in the afternoon on the fourth day of the holiday, northbound traffic would become heavier, he said.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
The holiday lasts from Feb. 2 to Feb. 10, including the two weekends before and after the five-day holiday.
Southbound traffic would be heavy from Feb. 5 to Feb. 7, the bureau said, adding that the heaviest southbound traffic is expected on Feb. 6, with the traffic volume potentially reaching 71 million vehicle kilometers (MVK).
Feb. 6, the third day of the holiday, is traditionally when married couples visit the wife’s parents.
Northbound traffic is to be heavy from Feb. 7 to Feb. 9, with the heaviest traffic expected on Feb. 8, possibly reaching 76MVK, the bureau said.
The total traffic volume on Feb. 7 could top 140MVK, which would beat the record of 138MVK set on the third day of the 2017 Lunar New Year holiday, the bureau said.
A series of measures to facilitate freeway traffic is to be enforced, Wu said.
In addition to regular toll-free hours between 12am and 5am, a high-occupancy vehicle policy — which requires that each car carry at least three passengers on freeways — would be implemented from 1pm to 6pm on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8 on the northbound lanes of the National Sun Yat-Sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) and Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3), Wu said.
On the Chiang Wei-Shui Freeway (Freeway No. 5), high-occupancy vehicle hours would be implemented on the southbound lanes between 7am and 12pm from Feb. 5 to Feb. 7, he said.
From Feb. 7 to Feb. 10, the high-occupancy hours on Freeway No. 5 would be enforced on the northbound lane from 2pm to 9pm, he added.
In related news, the Tourism Bureau is planning to expand the domestic travel subsidy program to include subsidies during low-travel seasons and weekdays, following a proposal President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) put forward at the end of last year, Tourism Bureau Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said.
According to the bureau’s preliminary plan, the subsidies would be awarded to tourists traveling domestically between April and June, as well as between October and November, which are the nation’s off-peak travel seasons, Chou said, adding that the subsidies would be only part of the program.
“We hope to first talk to local government officials in a seminar on Jan. 23 to get some ideas. We will also spend two to three months talking to tourism operators nationwide about how to motivate people to travel during the off-peak seasons,” Chou said.
The agency would also evaluate the performance of the winter travel subsidy program, which ends at the end of this month, he added.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS