The Wenhu MRT line and the Maokong Gondola have been painful experiences for Taipei City residents. Both were funded by the taxpayers, but the decisionmakers who messed them up seem to have little regard for such niceties. It didn’t even help that the Control Yuan launched a probe into the MRT line.
The overall budget for the Wenhu MRT line was NT$66.7 billion (US$2.1 billion), which including the price of land translates into an average cost of NT$4.8 billion per kilometer, far more than the NT$2.8 billion required for the high-speed railway. Excluding land prices, the average is NT$3.6 billion per kilometer. It stands to reason that any decent government should discuss whether it spends taxpayers’ money wisely. In this case, however, the construction costs were extremely high and there have been many stoppages since the line went into service. Data compiled by the Consumers’ Foundation shows that between July 5 and July 11 last year, the incident rate was 71 percent and from July 4 to Aug. 12, it was still a substantial 43 percent.
The city government claims it has increased maintenance work, but stoppages continue. As recently as March 24, service was interrupted because the power supply for the entire line went down. The apparently insurmountable problems of the Wenhu line indicate the need for a comprehensive review.
The Maokong Gondola cost NT$1.3 billion and is Taiwan’s largest cable car system. However, service was suspended after a little over a year of operations when the foundation of one of the supporting pillars was found to be unstable. Service has now been restored, though it has been suggested it is more to do with the year-end mayoral elections than anything. Indeed, on the day operations resumed, someone by the nickname “ricky13” posted a video on the Internet showing how service almost stopped twice on the way up, prompting him to take the bus back down the mountain claiming he was too scared to take the cable car.
Other problems include the fact cars get stuffy when they move slowly, the customer service center sells things but does not provide chairs for visitors and the many cars and scooters that violate parking regulations at the various stops. Residents in the neighborhood remain worried rain will once again cause landslides and undermine the now reinforced foundation of the same pillar. The city government, in its infatuation with big headline-grabbing projects, wants the Maokong Gondola to shine as brightly as Hong Kong’s Crystal Cabin cable car and has made this the biggest selling point in calling for the resumption of operations. Missing throughout the project has been a focus on safety before anything else, which is especially strange given it is the public’s No. 1 concern.
Even smaller projects in the city like the bicycle lane along Dunhua Road have failed, in this instance because of dangerous traffic and conflict between drivers and cyclists. In the end, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) announced the bicycle lane would no longer be reserved for the exclusive use of cyclists on weekdays. How on earth will they explain all that wasted money?
These three projects alone have cost the public almost NT$70 billion, which only goes to prove the saying that bad policymaking can be even worse than corruption. Rarely have the last two Taipei mayors engaged in self-criticism, and most government leaders, from national to local levels, have a tendency to blithely ignore what is going on around them, something not even the Control Yuan seems to be able to do anything about.
I can only reiterate my belief that in a culture where dissenting opinions are largely ignored, bad policymakers are invariably worse than the corrupt.
Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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