Walking into bowels of Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit system for the first time can be a bewildering experience. The same can be said about the Taipei City Government’s highly ambitious Youbike bicycle sharing system. But once you’ve signed up, used the service once or twice and figured out where the stations are, Youbike is a breeze.
Since Youbike stations are popping up all over the city, the Taipei Times wanted to get some feedback from users. There are two ways to get started with Youbike — EasyCard or credit card. If you already have an EasyCard, simply go to the Web site (www.youbike.com.tw/home.php) and click on the member icon. After following the instructions in English or Chinese, an SMS is sent to your mobile phone for confirmation and you can head directly to any of the stations to use a Youbike. The first 30 minutes of every rental are free and every 30 minutes after that is NT$10.
On the road
Photos: Marcus Aurelius and Lindsey Leamen
Using a credit card should be even easier, since all riders have to do is go to a Youbike kiosk and flash the credit card (as long as it has a microchip) and pick a bicycle. However, the credit card service is only available at 31 out of the 41 stations (mostly in the Xinyi District, 信義), and this is only marked on the physical map, not the one on the Youbike Web site.
Kate Lin (林雅婷) learned about Youbike from her co-worker and now uses the service at least twice a week.
“I enjoy doing this because I don’t get much chance to exercise during the week,” Lin said. “Also, there’s only one bus I can take home, and sometimes I have to wait a long time for it. Riding Youbike [home from work] is faster than that.”
Photo: Marcus Aurelius and Lindsey Leamen
Lin isn’t completely satisfied, though. “The registration machine at the station nearest my house is always broken,” she said. “Also, one time I couldn’t find any vacant places to return the bike, so I could only wait there until someone came to rent another bike.”
Lindsey Leamen, who prefers using the bikes for longer trips, thinks the service could be improved by adding more stations in places that aren’t in the main areas of the city.
“I work in Neihu and would love to have the option of biking to work in nice weather, and then taking the MRT home if the weather turns bad, which is a common occurrence in Taipei.”
Convenient service
Overall, Leamen believes the service is convenient because it provides a list of stations, a real time listing of how many bikes are there at that particular time and how many empty spaces are available.
“The first time I used a bike, I borrowed it for three and a half hours and it only cost me NT$60. That’s amazing, especially considering there’s a similar bike share program in Toronto and for half the time I ended up getting charged the equivalent of NT$700. Oh, and I love the baskets!”
Alex Trup, an avid Youbike rider, thinks it has a lot of potential. “It is very well-priced and if you are a light user, you will rarely pay anything,” he said. “I even made it once from Taipei City Hall to Academia Sinica in Nangang within the free time.”
Youbike hasn’t expanded to where Trup lives yet, but he still believes the service will improve. “Taipei is a great city for cycling because it has plenty of paths, generally flat terrain, and on some days, gorgeous weather. YouBike will solidify Taipei’s position as one of the world’s greatest cities for cycling.”
1. Choose off hours to ride the bikes or be prepared to wait during the busiest times of the day.
2. Before choosing a bike, always make sure and check the tires and brakes. If there is anything wrong with a bike, adjust the seat so it’s facing backwards, so other riders will know not to take it and the Youbike repair crew will know to fix it when they come by. (Tips courtesy of: www.weviewtaiwan.com)
“Long as I remember, the rain’s been coming down,” the song says. The last couple of weeks of wet certainly make it feel that way. The global media has recently observed the change of hitting a 1.5 Celsius degree rise in average temperatures in the next five years has risen to 50 percent. As many scientists have observed, once that level of warming is hit, the planet will reach a slew of tipping points. 1.5C is thus a major threshold. Nature has been sending us ever more urgent distress signals: murderous heatwaves across the Indian subcontinent, giant sandstorms in Iraq, collapsing
May 16 to May 22 Lin Wen-cha (林文察) and his “Taiwanese braves” (台灣勇) arrived in Fujian Province’s Jianyang District (建陽) on May 19, 1859, eager for their first action outside of Taiwan. The target was local bandit Guo Wanzong (郭萬淙), one of several ruffians who had taken advantage of ongoing Taiping Rebellion to establish strongholds in the area. A strongman leader of the notable Wufeng Lin Family (霧峰林家), Lin had impressed Qing Dynasty rulers five years earlier by helping expel the remnants of Small Knife Society (小刀會) rebels from Keelung. Lin’s forces routed Guo’s gang in just 11 days, earning a formal
A weekend getaway where you can escape the summer heat, commune with nature among trees that sprouted before the time of Christ or enjoy landscaped gardens and comfortable accommodations is within easy reach of northern Taiwan. Experience a traditional garden with Chinese and Japanese influences, birdwatching, ecological tours of old-growth cypress forest and one of Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) namesake villas set among orchards with a beautiful view of the Lanyang River (蘭陽溪) valley, all in the Makauy Ecological Park (馬告生態園區). The Northern Cross-Island Highway connects Taoyuan and Yilan counties, passing through misty conifer forests as it climbs over the Snow Mountain
In the world of Chinese-speaking media, “Sydney Daddy” is an Australian YouTube phenomenon: a kind of Alan Jones for Mandarin-speakers, who has found unexpected success, not just in Australia but throughout the diaspora. From his home in Sydney, Edgar Lu, 41, does a talk-back style program two or three times a week, interviewing politicians and local community figures or ranting on issues he cares about. “I think by Australian standards, I’m center-right,” he says. He says he’s not “anti-CCP [Chinese Communist Party], but at the same time, I don’t particularly care what they think.” YouTube offers a platform that is free from the censorship
RSS