The economic downturn and cold, damp weather appeared to have little effect on the festive spirit of travelers heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday, which sees New Year’s Day coincide with Valentine’s Day today.
Traffic was smooth on the nation’s freeways yesterday morning, but by the afternoon there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on certain sections. More than 19.3 million vehicles were on the road yesterday, about 23.7 percent more than the average daily volume of 156,000 on regular days, the National Freeway Bureau said.
From midnight to 7am yesterday, about 490,000 vehicles were traveling on the freeways, about 3.3 times the regular volume, the bureau said.
PHOTO: LIAO CHENG-HUI, TAIPEI TIMES
The bureau said vehicles crowded the freeways around 5am. By 8am, the more crowded sections were from Taoyuan’s Jhongli City (中壢) to Hsinchu’s Hukou (湖口) and Chubei (竹北) on Freeway No. 1.
Traffic hit a snarl for one-and-a-half hours around Jhongli after a beer truck spilled more than 3,000 beer cans on the freeway.
Traffic was slow on Freeway No. 3 between Sanying (三鶯) and Dashi (大溪). Freeway No. 5 also began to clog up between the Hsuehshan Tunnel and Toucheng (頭城) in the afternoon, the bureau said.
However, traffic was largely smooth in the morning, with speeds averaging 80kph in most segments. Motorists were traveling 60kph at the Hsuehshan Tunnel, the bureau said.
Meanwhile, the forecast calls for a wet and cold holiday, with three cold fronts expected, the Central Weather Bureau said.
The bureau also issued a torrential rain warning for mountainous areas in northern and central Taiwan.
Temperatures dropped as low as to 10˚C yesterday in northern coastal areas, Kinmen and Matsu.
The temperature in the north was 11˚C and Matsu saw the mercury fall to as low as 6˚C. Central Taiwan was between 14˚C and 19˚C and the south was 16˚C and 24˚C. Eastern Taiwan was between 13˚C and 23˚C, the bureau said.
Mountainous areas in northern, central and northeastern Taiwan have a greater chance of torrential rain and the rain and low cloud also affected the visibility, forecasters said.
The bureau said the cold front would taper off today, but low temperatures were to be expected in the early morning hours and after the sun goes down. Highs in the north would be 12˚C and 18˚C in the south, the bureau said.
Rain would persist in the north and northeast as well as Kinmen and Matsu today. The central and eastern areas would also see a chance of scattered shower, the bureau said.
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