Lawmakers at the legislative transportation committee yesterday proposed that the government should either stop charging motorists for taking the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway 1) or at least halve the toll charge on the grounds that it has overcharged motorists for too long for using the facility.
According to the lawmakers, the law mandates that the government has the authority to charge motorists freeway fees for 20 years. As the Sun Yat-sen Freeway was opened in 1974, the government's mandate to charge tolls on the freeway expired in 1994.
However, the government continues to charge motorists who use the road, meaning that motorists have been charged for an additional 12 years beyond the mandated time period, they said.
The overcharged amount has already exceeded NT$70 billion (US$2.12 billion), the lawmakers said.
Independent Legislator Chen Chin-ting (
Surplus
People First Party Legislator Lee Hung-chun (
When maintenance fees were deducted, there was still a surplus of NT$193.6 billion.
Lee also said that the freeway was fully paid for by 2000, when revenue surpassed all outlays for construction, maintenance and expansion projects.
Lee suggested that instead of paying NT$40, the current toll charge, motorists should pay a nominal fee of NT$5 to NT$10.
In response, Minister of Transportation and Communications Kuo Yao-chi (郭瑤琪) said the legislators' calculation failed to factor in expenses related to reconstruction after the Sept. 21, 1999, earthquake.
She said the ministry would not deny that the toll collected along the Sun Yat-sen Freeway has fully covered all expenses. Total revenue, in fact, had increased from NT$20.4 billion in 1994 to NT$33.2 billion last year.
Kuo added, though, that eliminating the freeway tolls was not viable at this point.
"The ministry needs to manage all of the freeways," Kuo said.
"Even though the National Highway Construction and Management Fund [the account created to store the collected fees] has an annual surplus of NT$18.2 billion, we still need the revenue from freeways 1 and 3 to support other new freeway construction projects," she said.
The minister said that the fund had been allocating over NT$20 billion per year for new freeway construction since 1999, including expansion projects for Freeway 3 (Formosa Freeway) and Freeway 5 (the freeway connecting Taipei and Ilan Counties).
Debts accrued
The debts accrued on these constructions amount to nearly NT$190 billion.
The government has to continue charging motorists for driving on all national freeways until at least the year 2037 to reach a self-liquidating ratio (SLR) of 78 percent, Kuo said.
SLR is an indicator often used to evaluate the financial feasibility of a public construction project and is calculated by dividing the net cash flow of a project by its total costs.
From now until 2015, the ministry estimates that approximately NT$240 billion will be used to build new freeways, Kuo added.
The minister also noted that the law dictates that freeways in parallel should not have different charges.
If no tolls are charged for those taking the Sun Yat-sen Freeway, then the same rule should apply to those driving on the Formosa Freeway, the minister said.
This, however, would not be an efficient solution, Kuo said, because traffic would simply transfer from one freeway to another.
Flat fee
While not all of the motorists are against the policy of toll collection, some of them suggest that the government should charge less.
Dennis Hsu (
"Some people might take the freeway and get off immediately, and they still have to pay NT$ 40," Hsu said. "This is unreasonable."
Hsu suggested that motorists should be charged based on the kilometers they drive on the freeway.
"They can get tickets at the ramps and pay the fees when they exit toll roads, just like it's done in the US," he said.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS