Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
Hau told a meeting of city government officials that before he will consider charging motorists congestion fees, the city should have a fully operational mass rapid transit (MRT) system.
He said the city government could evaluate the feasibility of whether congestion charges should be introduced in Taipei once the city's MRT system is fully developed, four years from now.
Hau said that he would be willing to discuss the issue with central government officials provided they can help Taipei complete its MRT network sooner than planned with increased financial subsidies.
The mayor made the remarks after newspapers reported that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications was floating a proposal to begin a pilot program in Taipei by charging a NT$20 or NT$50 congestion fee for each car or motorcycle entering the city's eastern district.
The eastern district, where the Taipei city government and the Taipei World Trade Center's three exhibition halls are located, is the busiest and most congested area in Taipei.
In 2003, London began to charge each motorist ?5 (US$10) to enter a 20km2 area in the city center in an attempt to force commuters to switch to public transportation. The congestion fee was raised to ?8 in 2005.
In February this year, the congestion charging zone was extended to West London.
Although the London mayor claims that the congestion charging system has cut traffic jams in central London by 30 percent and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 20 percent, most retailers and restaurant owners in the city center have complained about a decrease in customer numbers and falling turnover.
London was not the first city to adopt congestion charging, is the largest city to have done so.
In 1975 Singapore became the first city to implement a cordon-based congestion pricing system. It switched to an automatic electronic road pricing system in 1998.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS