Despite the best efforts of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to ease post-holiday traffic, many motorists yesterday continued to find themselves held up in traffic jams as they headed north on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway.
Meanwhile, drivers who had wanted to take alternative routes recommended by the transport ministry complained that signposting was not clear enough to direct them to those routes.
"Though the transport ministry had used the national flag at intersections to mark the alternative routes," said a motorist surnamed Shiao, "it was still confusing to me because at some intersections I saw no flags and at some intersections there were two different signs for completely different locations pointing in the same direction."
"And when it got dark," she continued, "I could hardly spot the flags."
She complained that she had been lost for more than an hour before finding the way back to the freeway.
Another motorist, surnamed Wang, complained that because of the heavy traffic jam on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway, she had driven for more than 10 hours to reach Taipei from Chiayi.
Transport ministry officials acknowledged the complaints, saying that the congestion centered mostly around the areas between the Shuishang (水上) district of Chiayi City and San-I (三義) Road (leading to the freeway) in Miaoli County.
"The Sun Yat-sen Freeway and the Northern Second Freeway help to distribute traffic in southern and northern Taiwan," said Lin Lin-san (林陵三), minister of transportation and communications. "But the traffic around the central area is often congested because construction of the Central Second Freeway, designed to help relieve the heavily congested Sun Yat-sen Freeway around this area, is not yet complete."
He added that only when construction of the Central Second Freeway is complete at the end of the year "will a smooth traffic flow be restored to this area."
"Until then," he said, "we would strongly urge motorists to use the Western Coastal Expressway to avoid the traffic congestion that often occurs around the central section of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway."
Lin added that the ministry would review the effectiveness of its new traffic scheme to determine whether it is worth making it compulsory in future.
Lin was referring to the voluntary scheme introduced during this year's Lunar New Year holiday, whereby drivers whose license plates ended with even numbers or Roman letters were encouraged to travel on certain days and those with odd numbers to travel on other days.
Despite the public complaints, Lin defended the ministry's efforts to achieve an even distribution of traffic flow during the Lunar New Year holiday.
"Compared to previous years, the traffic flow this time around has been smoother," Lin said.
"Overall," he added, "I feel that the traffic measures we took this time around, such as toll-free times and vehicle occupancy requirements on the freeways, have accomplished their goals by helping to ease the overall traffic congestion."
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