Traffic was heavy on freeways on the first day of the Tomb-sweeping Day long weekend, with approximately 460,000 vehicles on the freeways between midnight and 6am yesterday -- the designated no-toll fee hours.
The numbers neared the figures set during the same timeframe on Lunar New Year's Eve this year, the Taiwan Area Freeway Bureau said.
While the bureau used its high vehicle occupancy control system between 6am and 11am yesterday to ease traffic flow, southbound traffic on all the freeways was heavy from north to central Taiwan between 7am and 10am.
PHOTO: LI CHING-FANG, TAIPEI TIMES
On the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3), vehicles were at one point backed up from Ankeng (安坑) in Taipei County to Xiangshan (香山) in Hsinchu County.
The section between Nangang and Ilan on the Chiang Wei-shui Freeway (Freeway No. 5) was heavily congested, which in turn backed-up vehicles travleing from Muzha to Nangang on Freeway No. 3.
Traffic in the Hsuehshan Tunnel crawled along, starting at 7am.
Except for the section between Taichung and Changhwa, southbound traffic in the south of the country appeared to move relatively smoother.
Overall, freeway traffic eased slightly yesterday afternoon, and toll booths on freeways reopened after 11am.
But then northbound traffic began to pick up again at 3pm as people began returning home from their graveside visits.
As of 6pm, traffic was moving smoothly except on sections between Yangmei (楊梅) and Jhongli (中壢) and between Yuanlin (員林) and Puyan (埔鹽) on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1).
Traffic was also slow northbound between Hsinchu and Chulin (竹林) and between Caotun (草屯) and Wufeng (霧峰) on Freeway No. 3. At one point traffic was backed up for 4km on the road headed for the southern entrance to the Hsuehshan Tunnel.
The bureau also said approximately 1.88 million vehicles used the freeways on Wednesday, a 17 percent increase over daily traffic volume.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (
From today until Sunday, freeway toll booths will be open except between midnight and 6am.
Heavy passenger traffic was also reported on the nation's railways and domestic airlines.
The Taiwan Railway Administration added a late-night train on Wednesday to accommodate the needs of southbound passengers.
Unlike the situation during the Lunar New Year holiday, nearly all people on the waiting lists for airline seats to Kinmen (
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
A group affiliated with indicted Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) is to be dissolved for monitoring Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, a source said yesterday. Xu, the secretary-general of the Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Service Alliance, was indicted on March 24 on charges of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). The alliance “illegally monitored" Chinese immigrants living in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Ministry of the Interior is expected to dissolve the organization in the coming days under provisions of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), the source said. Xu, who married a Taiwanese in 1993 and became a Republic
RSS