The Ministry of Transportation and Communications plans to honor a commitment to expand a 30-day bus and MRT pass to cover northern regions, despite the four mayoral candidates who proposed the idea not being elected on Saturday, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday.
The Taipei City Government and New Taipei City Government fund the monthly pass with an annual subsidy of NT$560 million and NT$380 million (US$18.06 million and US$12.25 million) per year respectively.
The pass was introduced in 2018 by the governments of Taipei City and New Taipei City.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
For NT$1,280, the pass provides unlimited travel for 30 days within and between the two cities on their MRT and bus systems, and also includes free use of the YouBike system for 30 minutes per trip.
Prior to Saturday’s elections, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), New Taipei City mayoral candidate Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), Keelung mayoral candidate Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) and Taoyuan mayoral candidate Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said they would expand the monthly pass plan to include commuters in Keelung and Taoyuan, and lower the price to NT$1,200 per 30 days.
“The monthly pass was introduced to encourage the use of the public transportation system. It helps conserve energy, cut carbon emissions and reduce traffic accidents and deaths,” Wang said.
“So long as city government officials make proposals on how they want to execute monthly pass plans, we will review them and make the subsidies available based on their proposals,” he said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS