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Traffic Management 101

Amid the media hoopla about the opening of the Taipei 101 Mall, at last somebody has finally had the good sense to ask the question: How will people get there? ("Traffic chaos expected at mall opening," Nov. 6, page 1)

Everybody knows that the worst rush-hour traffic in Taipei has long been at the intersection of Hsinyi and Keelung roads and that the city's worst weekend traffic is now centered around the Warner Village complex.

Everybody, that is, except the city government's Bureau of Transportation, whose primary policy solution seems to be telling people, "Please take mass transit."

If Bureau Director Lin Chih-ying (林志盈) is unaware that mass transit has already been shown to be completely insufficient in that area, even before the opening of Taipei 101, then he is utterly incompetent. Assuming he does know that the Taipei City Hall MRT station is much too far away, and that buses simply get stuck in the same traffic, then why is he misleading the public into thinking everything will be all right?

Perhaps the emergency measures he claims to be preparing will be successful for a few days around the mall opening, but it is obvious that his government in fact has no plan for coping with the steadily increasing flux of people into the Hsinyi "Planning" District.

Perhaps they are secretly hoping that the large number of projected shoppers will not materialize, or that people will simply start to avoid the malls in that area.

However, even this rosy scenario will do nothing for the enormous number of office workers who will be taking up jobs in the Taipei 101 next year, not to mention those who already work in neighboring buildings.

Apparently everyone will just have to suffer until the new MRT line that is necessary to make Taipei 101 work properly is built.

Unfortunately for everyone, it will not be finished until at least 2010.

It is grotesque that such major development is being encouraged willy-nilly, completely lacking coordination with basic transport infrastructure, but that is precisely what is happening.

Labeling this behavior as "putting the cart before the horse," as Councilor Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) did, is an understatement.

It would be better described as sticking one's head in the sand.

Bo Tedards
Taipei

US media covered Chen visit

People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong's (宋楚瑜) statement that no major US newspaper covered President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) visit to New York was incorrect.

The New York Times ran a story, "Taiwan's leader campaigns, with a stop in U.S." on Oct. 31. USA Today, the largest-circulation paper in the US, published an article and an extensive interview with Chen on Oct. 30 ("Taiwan leader not tiptoeing around China").

Web sites for CNN, MSNBC and other media organizations also carried the news of Chen's New York stopover and his well-deserved human rights award. And many more outlets published the news on Chen's historic handshake with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as China's amusing skittishness.

Dan Stevenson
Seattle, Washington
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