Inviting the public to help protect the environment by using public transportation, the Taipei City Government yesterday launched the "2005 Public Transportation Month."
Big prizes, including NT$10,000 in cash and MRT value cards to the value of NT$100,000, were made available to lure citizens to experience the city without cars.
Addressing the ceremony, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that about 45 percent of Taipei's residents use public transportation. While the percentage has been climbing over the years, the public-transport utility rate is still low compared to Seoul, Tokyo and especially Hong Kong, where 80 percent of residents commute by using public transportation.
"Taking advantage of public transportation benefits the environment and prolongs our lives with better air quality. So we want to invite you all to discover Taipei by taking the MRT, buses, bicycles or by walking," Ma said yesterday.
The 2005 Public Transportation Month features a series of events, including "Bicycle Week" between now and Sep. 16, "International Taipei Car Free Day" on Sep. 17, and "Walk to School Week" from Oct. 13 through Oct. 16.
Inspired by the "In town, without my car" event held in France from 1998, the Taipei Car Free Day was launched in 2002 and the event will also be held in Taipei County this year. The city government invited the public to ride their bicycles to Huanjian Bridge (
To encourage more people to join the car-free movement, the department will issue a "Super MRT card" that allows unlimited free MRT rides over 1,000 days, which translates into more than NT$100,000.
People who take the MRT more than 10 times before Oct. 16 are eligible to register on the "Car Free Day" Web site at www.dot.taipei.gov.tw/ch/ to enter the draw. Other prizes include a cash "NT$10,000 Giveaway Everyday" and 3,000 souvenir MRT cards. For more information on the events, visit the Public Transportation Month Web site at www.tvbs.com/project/free_car/index.asp.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods