A “walking festival” was held in Taipei yesterday by a road safety advocacy group to urge the government to pay greater attention to pedestrian rights, with its chairperson calling Taiwan a “living hell for pedestrians” and a “traffic hell.”
The two-and-a-half-hour event began at Beimen Plaza near Taipei Main Station. Participants marched through nearby streets as members of Vision Zero Taiwan, the organizer, and road safety experts examined the area’s traffic planning and road design.
Road safety “still has a lot of room for improvement,” Vision Zero chairperson Y.C. Wu (吳宜蒨) said, adding that goal was to push the government to take the issue seriously.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Following a march on road safety in 2023, which drew tens of thousands of participants, it is evident that some local governments have paid more attention to the issue, Wu said, citing the release of the Taipei City Road Design Manual last month as an example.
“I hope other city and county governments will follow suit,” she said, adding that local governments tend to adopt their own approaches to road safety based on local conditions, with the implementation of pedestrian safety infrastructure often hindered by opposition from some people, due to the inconvenience it might cause.
Asked if Taiwan is still a “living hell for pedestrians,” as CNN said in an article in 2022, Wu said: “More or less.”
The more concrete description would be a “traffic hell,” Wu added.
“It is not just pedestrians — many road users, including drivers and motorcyclists, also get injured due to poor road design,” Wu said.
Viga Huang, one of the 50 event participants, said he became interested in road safety after a few accidents made him realize how Taiwan fails at handling the issue compared with other countries.
Taiwan’s road planning is centered around cars, which makes pedestrians “the vulnerable group” when navigating the streets, he said.
European countries have more pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, as they promote public transportation and walking over private car use, he added.
According to official data, 2,675 people, including 332 pedestrians, died in traffic accidents from January to November last year in Taiwan, out of a population of 23.4 million.
In comparison, data from the Hong Kong Police Force showed that the Chinese city — home to about 7.5 million people, roughly one-third of Taiwan’s population — recorded 96 traffic-related deaths in 2023, including 62 pedestrian fatalities.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has fined Taobao NT$1.2 million (US$36,912) for advertisements that exceed its approved business scope, requiring the Chinese e-commerce platform to make corrections in the first half of this year or its license may be revoked. Lawmakers have called for stricter enforcement of Chinese e-commerce platforms and measures to prevent China from laundering its goods through Taiwan in response to US President Donald Trump’s heavy tariffs on China. The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee met today to discuss policies to prevent China from dumping goods in Taiwan, inviting government agencies to report. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) said
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 today amid outcry over his decision to wear a Nazi armband to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case last night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and covering the book with his coat. Lee said today that this is a serious
RSS