The Taipei City Government is set to reinstate several traffic regulations and restrictions beginning today to ensure smoother commuting in the wake of Typhoon Nari. The ban on parking for longer than three minutes along five major roads with yellow curbs is to be resumed today.
The roads are Chungshan South and North roads, Minchuan East and West roads, Keelung Road, Chunghsiao West Road and sections one through four of Roosevelt Road and Chunghsiao East Road.
"Allowing continuous parking along the five main routes in town will congest traffic," city government spokesperson Wu Yu-sheng (
Parking for longer than three minutes along roads with yellow curbs will be allowed until Sunday on roads other than the aforementioned five.
Public parking lots in the Shungshan, Hsinyi, Neihu, Nankang and Chungshan districts -- areas hit hardest by Nari -- will also remain free of charge until midnight on Sunday.
Roads marked with yellow lines allow temporary parking for up to three minutes. Taipei's yellow-lined roads have been fully open to parking since Nari pounded Taiwan Sept. 16.
The temporary lifting of parking restrictions and a go-ahead for free parking announced Sept. 17 were for Taipei residents' convenience in efficiently cleaning up their flooded houses and communities.
The typhoon claimed 90 lives, left 13 missing and injured another 208, while severely damaging and flooding the country's mass transportation networks, including Taipei's mass rapid transit system.
To divert inbound traffic to Taipei at peak hours, the Hua-Tsuei Bridge connecting Taipei and Panchiao -- which usually only allows traffic from Taipei to Panchiao -- will be reversed to be open only for one-way traffic to Taipei from 6:30am to 9am.
On a part of Taipei's Manka Avenue, usually only for traffic headed to Panchiao, one of the lanes will be appropriated for vehicles going from Panchiao to Taipei during rush hour.
Special bus lanes will also be reserved on Chunghsiao East and West Roads, Chungshan South and North Roads and Roosevelt Road to be used by buses running along the MRT lines.
The buses will be operating temporarily until the MRT system is fully operational.
Not all traffic recommendations will be implemented, however. The High Occupancy Vehicle control measures aimed at reducing the number of cars on the road as suggested by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications will not be adopted.
"Imposing car-pool measures on Taipei citizens is only reasonable when most of them could rely on the public transport system," Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
City officials said on Saturday that Taipei's MRT system should be functioning shortly.
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