The utilization rate of public transportation in Kaohsiung City reached 80 percent of capacity during the opening and closing ceremonies of the World Games, the city’s Transportation Bureau said yesterday.
In a press release, the bureau said the utilization rate of the city’s MRT system rose 27 percent, while that of buses surged 74 percent between July 16 and July 26.
The city government offered free bus rides during the 11 days of the Games.
An average of about 132,600 people take the MRT per day, while 71,500 take the bus, the bureau said. During the Games, the number of MRT passengers rose to about 167,800 per day, while bus passengers increased to 124,700.
Meanwhile, about 83 percent of respondents in a Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) survey said they were satisfied with the city’s year-old MRT system.
The results of the poll, conducted by National Cheng Kung University’s Research and Development Foundation, were released to mark the first anniversary of the city’s two MRT lines.
About 650 respondents participated in the survey.
In related developments, the city’s Public Works Bureau said the nation’s first oceanic culture and pop music center was scheduled for completion in 2015.
The Council for Economic Planning and Development on Monday approved the city’s proposal to build the center between piers 11 and 15 at Kaohsiung Harbor.
The project is expected to cost NT$5.5 billion (US$168.2 million).
“With the experience of building the World Games main stadium, we are confident that the [pop music] venue will become a landmark of southern Taiwan,” Deputy Kaohsiung Mayor Lee Yung-te (李永得) said.
The donation of offshore patrol vessel Kinmen to the Philippines includes provisions that protect Taiwanese fishers and facilitate security cooperation across the First Island Chain, officials said yesterday. The comment was made during the Cabinet’s comprehensive administrative report at the legislature after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Yu-chen (許宇甄) expressed concerns about the decision to give a ship to a country whose coast guard had in 2013 fired on a Taiwanese trawler and killed its captain without provocation. The Cabinet should lay out the safeguards that have been established to prevent the Philippine government from using the Kinmen to harass, expel
GROWING TIES: The CGA is planning a goodwill mission to the Philippines, in what would be the first time since 1975 a Taiwanese paramilitary vessel has visited the country The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) plans to significantly expand its participation in international security cooperative frameworks and its operational capabilities, a budget proposal for next year showed. The budget indicates a transformation of the CGA from a maritime law enforcement arm into a national defense and intelligence gathering entity capable of tackling larger regional security matters. The proposal showed that personnel from the coast guard’s Intelligence Division and Special Action Support Center are to participate in high-level national security talks with the US. As the CGA has dealt with China’s rising “gray zone” threats around Taiwan, it has become a valuable asset to
A patrol vessel donated by the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) to the Philippines was commissioned into the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Friday, a Philippine non-governmental organization said. The CGA on Sept. 16 confirmed media reports that Taiwan had donated a retired 500-tonne patrol vessel to the Philippines. The Manila-based We Protect Our Seas (WPS) foundation, which served as an intermediary in the transfer, said that the vessel was formerly the CGA’s 500-tonne petrol vessel Kinmen (CG123). The WPS, in a statement issued on Friday, said the vessel, renamed as the BRP Sarangani, had been commissioned into the PCG the
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: Beijing sent two China Coast Guard vessels to escort a ‘supposedly private research ship,’ a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman said The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday confirmed that it had recently deployed three patrol vessels to waters in Taiwan’s overlapping exclusive economic zone with the Philippines to monitor three Chinese vessels. CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said the agency regularly monitors Chinese vessels around Taiwan, and that the deployment south of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, was carried out in accordance with standard procedures. He added that the waters fall within the overlapping exclusive economic zones of Taiwan and the Philippines, which extend 200 nautical miles (370km) from their coastlines. Hsieh made the comments when asked about a
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