The Xinsheng Overpass (新生高架橋) will reopen to traffic tomorrow after a 16-month reconstruction project, the Taipei City Government announced yesterday.
The overpass, which was built more than 25 years ago, has been undergoing reconstruction work since July last year. The overpass will reopen at noon after an opening ceremony in the morning.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) inspected the project yesterday and said the safety of the overpass was assured after a thorough safety report and inspection by Taipei City’s Transportation Department.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
“The reconstruction increases the overpass’ earthquake resistance capacity and will improve the flow of traffic around the Yuanshan area. We look forward to the reopening of the overpass,” he said.
Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢), commissioner of the department, said the new overpass would solve the problem of traffic jams at the Yuanshan Tunnel and reduce the traffic flow around Yuanshan by around 50 percent.
After the overpass is reopened, cars heading to Shilin (士林) and Beitou (北投) can traverse the overpass via Tunghe Street, while traffic heading to Dazhi (大直) and Neihu (內湖) can use the overpass to access Beian Road, he said.
The overpass is a main route connecting northern and southern Taipei along with the Jianguo Overpass (建國高架橋).
The city’s New Construction Department tore down the section of the overpass that crosses the Keelung River and the northern approach to the overpass in July last year.
The quality of the construction work was called into question recently after the city government acknowledged that substandard adhesive had been used in the reconstruction project.
The city government stopped using the problematic adhesive and invited the Taipei Structural Engineers Association to assess the work last month.
Hau said a report confirmed the safety of the reconstruction work allowing the overpass to be reopened according to the original schedule.
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