The Rainbow Bridge, a 167m bridge that connects Neihu and Songshan districts was opened yesterday, as the Taipei City Government expected the bridge to facilitate local foot traffic and serve as an attraction as well.
As the only bridge in the city designed specifically for pedestrians, the S-shape structure cost the city government NT$120 million (US$3.6 million) and took two years to construct.
The bridge shortens the walking distance from Neihu's Hsin-ming Road to Songshan Railway Station and nearby Raohe Night Market from 30 minutes to 10 minutes, the city government said.
Attending the launch ceremony yesterday, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
"In addition to shortening the distance, the bridge itself is an attraction, as it looks stunning at night when it's all lit up," Hau said at the opening ceremony on the bridge yesterday.
After crossing the new bridge together, Hau and Ma later also signed a joint statement and vowed to protect the local environment.
To promote the bridge as a local attraction, Chen Yu-hsian (
The office will also set up a deck to attract passengers who tour the city by boat on the "Blue Highway" route between Dadaocheng and the Tamshui River to visit the bridge as well.
The "Blue Highway" was a local tourism project launched by the city government in 2004 to promote tourism along the rivers.
The city decorated the bridge and five other bridges, including McArthur Bridge No. 1 and No. 2, Minchuan Bridge, Chengde Bridge and Bailing Bridge, with LED lights to improve the view of Taipei's night cityscape, Chen said.
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