Taiwan people love free buses!

Taipei Times: "Traffic near the Yuanshan Bus Station (圓山轉運站) in Taipei was severely disrupted yesterday morning when thousands of people tried to get free tickets for a bus trip to Yilan County.
The special offer was provided by freeway operator Kuo Kuang Motor Transport (國光客運), which was scheduled to launch three new bus routes via Freeway No. 5 to Yilan, Toucheng (頭城) and Nanfangao (南方澳) in Yilan County yesterday. To attract customers for the new bus routes, the bus company allowed people to board the bus free of charge for three days, from yesterday until tomorrow."

仿照YouBike 北市公共電動機車租借上路 - 中時電子報

仿照YouBike 北市公共電動機車租借上路 - 中時電子報: "台灣機車族多，台北市繼YouBike公共自行車服務後，再推公共電動機車租借服務We Mo，民眾下載APP就可以在路上隨機租車，今天起在台北市3大行政區提供200台供民眾搶先試用，而價錢方面，前10分鐘收費25塊，但目前只限安卓系統的手機能使用，蘋果手機用戶要等11月底租借系統才會上線。"

Taiwan to start building home-grown light rail

focustaiwan : "Taipei, Sept. 20 (CNA) The goal of the project for a light rail system serving New Taipei's Tamsui District is to upgrade Taiwan's rail industry by building trains locally for the new rail system, the city's Department of Rapid Transit Systems said Tuesday."

Taiwan is already known for it's bike-sharing success and good bus service with many low-price and free buses. Now it will take another step toward energy independence by making its own light rail trains. Along with its falling birth rate, this will make Taiwan a world leader in ending energy waste and achieving gentle degrowth.

Cars take up so much space highways have to go higher and higher

Why not spend this money on fare-free buses instead of building to the sky.

People in Taiwan do not want nuclear power because of Fukushima

街道應該是為了「人」而設計

Social Enterprise Insights: "過了一百年，各大城市終於了解到：街道應該是為了「人」而設計，而非汽車"

Dragon Boat traffic vehicle count up 5% in Taiwan

The China Post: "TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Traffic conditions on the nation's freeways hit bottlenecks on Thursday as vacationers took to the roads to celebrate the extended Dragon Boat Festival weekend holiday. Government figures estimate that more than 2.6 million vehicles used national highways, a 5-percent increase from 2015."

English list of free buses in Taipei

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_Taipei#Free_Bus_Routes

遭疑降票價救民調 柯文哲：是救公共運輸 | 要聞 | 聯合新聞網

udn.com : "台北市長柯文哲昨天拋出捷運票價應調降，外界質疑是為救民調。他今天表示，「降價是為了救公共運輸，和那個沒關係」，台北捷運公司正在草擬計畫，將朝搭越多折扣越多來走。"

Taipei Mayor falls into trap advocating lower rail fares instead of bus fares. He is trying to do the right thing, but the profiteers of oil, autos, and sprawl will try to manipulate and defame him.

Huge carbon-capture and storage project in Taiwan

Extensive wetlands along Tamsui River in Taiwan capture carbon and store as rotted vegetation. This wetlands also preserves biodiversity, purifies water, prevents floods, provides exercise, provides recreation. This is a pedestrian/bike path along the wetlands.

Record high ridership aboard Taipei tomb-sweeping buses

ChinaPost : "
TAIPEI -- Free buses for people heading to clean up ancestral graves in Taipei for Tomb Sweeping Day carried a record high number of 775,843 passengers this year, according to bus operators.
The buses, a measure meant to alleviate traffic as people flocked to public cemeteries, made 16,476 trips on March 22-23 and 29-30 and the three-day Tomb Sweeping Day weekend April 4-6.

The buses took passengers to Fu-Der Cemetery, the Nangang military cemetery and Yangmingshan Cemetery and others subject to traffic controls, imposed out of concern that the narrow roads leading to the cemeteries would be packed with people.

Last year's buses carried a previous record of around 720,000 passengers, according to statistics compiled by Capital Bus, Taipei Bus and Metropolitan Transport Corporation, the three companies operating the free buses."

Chang Gung Hospital, Nursing Care, and Senior Living operate a fleet of fare-free buses

Taipei to triple biking network, people switching from motor vehicles to bicycles

The Guardian: "Taipei has announced plans to more than triple the length of its network of segregated city centre bike lanes to 120 miles by 2019. In addition, there are 240 miles of shared use pavements, and 70 miles of riverside cycleways outside the city’s flood defence levees, which are hugely popular with leisure cyclists at weekends.

Combined with the implementation of on-street parking fees for cars and scooters, the approach seems to be working – a survey showed an estimated 31.2% of people riding YouBikes had switched from motorbikes and 4.4% from private cars."

柯P用價格手段消滅交通亂象，高招！

ETtoday 鍾文榮:

"柯市長這幾招會讓機車通勤族的實質通勤成本增加，透過降低大眾交通運輸費率的方式拉低兩個成本之間的差距，即使無法消滅交通亂象，雖不中，亦不遠矣。"

Do we really want this? 我們真的要這樣生活？

Try navigating that! A five-level overpass in Chongqing is quite an intricate piece of work. (Photos: photostock.china.com.cn) #TrendingToday

Posted by Trending in China on Monday, March 14, 2016

Government moves to bolster long-term care system

eiu.com : "On February 22nd a proposal to fund Taiwan's long-term care system partially through annual contributions directly from taxes and the regular annual government budget, with NT$30bn (US$940.1m) and NT$3bn respectively, was announced by the president-elect, Tsai Ing-wen."

Walking through 228 : 10 Facts About 228

Outreach for Taiwan: "The 228 Incident/Massacre, (二二八事件), is an event in Taiwan’s history that is not commonly known; the exact number of victims remain a mystery other than that tens of thousands suffered. What is known is that it was a conflict between the incoming ROC government and the inhabitants of Taiwan. Although many have heard of the bloody incident in recent years, it remains controversial. Here are 10 facts that you should know about 228:"

Taipei showing the world how to do bike-sharing

Star2.com: "A 2014 report by European Cyclists’ Federation on Taipei’s cycling achievement noted that cycling mode share (percentage of total trips done by bicycle) in Taipei is up 30%. It now stands at 5.5%, a figure yet to be matched by many European capital cities (in cycling utopias like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, however, bikes account for more than 50% of trips in the cities). The usage figure for YouBike matches the world’s best, and women make up 50% of the cycling population – a gauge of the city’s cycle-friendliness."