Kaohsiung City yesterday inaugurated the nation’s first unmanned metropolitan public bicycle rental network.
During an inspection of the system in front of the City Hall and the Cultural Center, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said about 50 bike rental sites would be established along the city’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) routes by the end of May.
The bike rental system is expected to provide a total of 4,500 bicycles, she said.
“[The city’s bike rental network] is different from those in other cities and counties, which are usually located in limited and specific areas,” Chen said. “The city’s rental network extends along the MRT lines so that people can transfer from the MRT to a bike and back to the MRT again. Those who rent bicycles at the network do not need to return the bicycles to the same locations where they rent the bikes.”
The mayor said the length of the city’s bike paths was expected to reach 180km before the opening of the World Games in July, adding that the city government would also seek to expand the network along the paths.
She said the city government would also pursue integration of credit and membership cards for the rental network so that tourists visiting the city could conveniently rent the bikes.
Those who rent bikes after riding the MRT will recieve a discount by paying with the cards, Chen said.
The city has been planning the network since June. Chen said last year that the city government would spend NT$60 million (US$1.7 million) installing the network.
Chen also promised in June to consider building parking lots exclusively for bicycles.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS