Large-scale traffic controls will be in force in many parts of Taipei City tomorrow for the ING Marathon, the Taipei City Government said yesterday.
The marathon, which has been the largest marathon in the country over the past four years, is expected to attract 110,000 runners this year, with the 42km route snaking its way around the city.
The marathon will start at 7am in front of Taipei City Hall and is divided into four separate races.
The route for the main race runs along Renai Road, Zhongshan S Road, Zhongshan N Road, Beian Road, Huandong Avenue, McArthur Second Bridge, Civic Boulevard and Keelung Road.
Shihfu Road between Songgao Road and Songshou Road will be closed to traffic from 12am to 1:30pm, while vehicles will be barred from Civic Boulevard and Huandong Avenue between 5am and 1pm and the Keelung Road underpass from 7:30am to 12:30pm, the Department of Transportation said.
FLEXIBLE
Flexible traffic controls will be enforced on Renai Road, Zhongshan N and S roads and other roads along the race route.
The department will open the Jianguo Overpass’ entrance ramp on Xinyi Road to motorcycles and cars who need to pass Renai Road from 7am to 8:30am, and will open the Zhongxiao W Road underpass and Hsinsheng Overpass entrance ramps on Minzu E Road and Binchiang Street for scooters during the same period.
The city government will adjust the operating time for the Taipei MRT system forward to 5:30am and will also open the Muzha Line, which has been suspended on weekends for system testing, from 5:30am to 9am.
The department said a total of 166 bus routes would be affected by the race and passengers should check detour information before heading out.
For more information, visit the marathon’s Web site at www.ingtaipeiinternationalmarathon.com or call the Taipei Citizen’s Hotline at 1999.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the