Thousands of people took part in the International Car-Free Day event in Taipei city and county yesterday morning, touring the area on pedal power.
The event, part of the city government's "2005 Public Transportation Month," was inspired by an event first held in France in 1998.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) led the crowd of bikers on a 10km-ride from the front of Taipei City Hall to the Huachiang Bridge, where they met up with acting Taipei County Commissioner Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) and a group of bikers from Taipei County.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
The two officials signed a joint declaration in support of the Kyoto Protocol and reaffirmed their commitment to helping curb global warming by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.
"The combined population of Taipei city and county is more than 6 million people. We are trying to connect the city and county's cycling routes to encourage more people to go without cars," Ma said after signing the declaration on the bridge.
There are almost 100km of cycling routes in Taipei City, while the county has 170km of bike paths.
PHOTO: CNA
Clad in a yellow cycling outfit, an energetic participant in yesterday's ride surnamed Wang said he has been living "car-free" for years.
"I go to work by bike everyday. It takes me 20 minutes, but I find it healthy and fun," he said.
Another participant, surnamed Tan, said she has taken part in the car-free event for the past three years. Only on such a day, she said, would she dare to ride on roads usually packed with cars, buses and motorcycles.
"I hope the city government can keep its promise to expand cycling routes, so that we can enjoy the right of riding," she said.
International Car-Free Day began in France in 1998, with the "In town, without my car" festival. It is now celebrated by 100 million people each year in some 1,500 cities around the world.
To encourage more people to join the car-free movement, Taipei City Transportation Department will hold a drawing, with a "Super MRT card" as the top prize. The card winner will get unlimited free MRT rides for more than 1,000 days, which could translate into a savings of more than NT$100,000 (US$3,036).
To enter the drawing, people must take the Taipei MRT more than 10 times before Oct. 16 and must register online at city government's "Car Free Day" Web site (www.dot.taipei.gov.tw/ch/).
Other prizes include a cash "NT$10,000 Giveaway Everyday" and 3,000 souvenir MRT cards.
For more information on other events during Taipei's "2005 Public Transportation Month can be found on the Public Transportation Month Web site (www.tvbs.com/project/free_car/index.asp).
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching