The traffic ban imposed on World Carfree Day yesterday caused traffic jams in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), drawing complaints from many commuters.
It was the first time that the city blocked off streets on a working day since it began marking World Carfree Day seven years ago. All motor vehicles were barred from entering the Xinyi commercial zone from 7am to 5pm yesterday.
To encourage people to use public transport, those who took buses traveling along the Xinyi commercial zone using their mass rapid transit Easy Card received free rides. Those who did so with cash money, however, did not enjoy the privilege.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Some passengers complained, however, that they still got charged on their Easy Card.
The city’s Department of Transportation yesterday urged them to provide their Easy Card number, the bus number and the time they took the bus.
The department would deal with the matter on a case-by-case basis and refund the money if necessary.
As the traffic ban was not widely promoted, verbal clashes erupted when police told some motorists to make a detour because of the road blocks.
Some motorcyclists got off their bikes and started pushing their motorcycles in the car-free zone so they could reach their office
Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who rode a bicycle to inspect the traffic, said he realized the traffic ban caused some inconvenience, but added that sacrifices had to be made to protect the environment and improve traffic.
The city government welcomes all opinions and suggestions about World Carfree Day and would make adjustments accordingly, the mayor said.
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
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
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