Taoyuan expects to add 100 YouBike stations in the municipality by the end of this year as part of a long-term expansion of the bike rental system, Taoyuan Department of Transportation Director-general Chang Hsin-fu (張新福) said on Thursday.
That would bring the number of YouBike stations in Taoyuan to 517, Chang said at an administrative meeting during which he reported on the planning of additional YouBike stations and the phasing out of the YouBike 1.0 system.
In addition to adding another 100 stations by the end of this year, Taoyuan wants its YouBike network to have 750 stations by the end of 2028, Chang said.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
Taoyuan currently has 10,645 YouBikes, and there is a system in place at busy stations during peak hours where workers are on hand to replace bikes and free up parking slots, he said.
At the meeting, Taoyuan Mayor Simon Chang (張善政) asked the department and the city’s Department of Tourism to work together to enhance YouBike coverage at the city’s tourist hotspots while phasing out the YouBike 1.0 system by October.
The YouBike 2.0 system has a solar-powered control panel mounted on each bicycle, which could be used by scanning a QR code, and each dock would accommodate one bicycle instead of two.
The YouBike 1.0 system required users to rent the bike through a kiosk near the parking dock, or by swiping an Easycard over the sensor zone at the dock, and the docks accommodated two bicycles rather than one, a less energy-efficient arrangement, the system’s manufacturer said.
The locking system has also changed. Renters of 1.0 bikes have to keep the key when temporarily parking the bike on the side of the road, while for 2.0 bike users, the experience is keyless.
The new 2.0 system allows users to lock and unlock the bikes with an attached cylindrical key that users gain access to with an Easycard or by scanning the QR code on the control panel.
These changes seem to be boosting usage, Chang Hsin-fu said. YouBike 2.0 bicycles that are already in service are being used about five to six times every day, compared with two to 2.5 times a day for YouBike 1.0 vehicles.
The electric-assisted YouBike 2.0E, launched on Feb. 1 in Taoyuan, has the highest daily usage of all three types of bikes at seven to 10 times, he said.
The Taoyuan Department of Transportation said it started transiting from the 1.0 to the 2.0 version in November last year.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS