The Taipei City Government yesterday urged people planning to visit ancestral tombs during the Tomb-Sweeping Festival to take advantage of free shuttle buses.
The bus services will be available for seven days — on the weekend of Tomb-Sweeping Day, from April 3 to April 5, as well as the two weekends before.
Capital Bus Co president Lee Chien-wen (李建文) said the service would be available from 5:30am to 5pm, with a frequency of about one bus every two minutes during peak hours. The company has set aside 137 buses to provide the service this year, he said.
PHOTO: CNA
“I promise no one will have to wait long for a bus,” he said.
It is the sixth consecutive year that the company will provide the shuttle service. The service will be available on five major routes going to Fude Public Cemetery (富德公墓) in Muzha (木柵), the Military Cemetery in Nangang (南港) and the First Public Cemetery on Yangmingshan.
Except for the buses traveling to Fude cemetery, the vehicles can accommodate 40 to 50 people, Lee said. Buses traveling to Fude will be smaller because the road leading to the cemetery is narrower.
To ensure smooth traffic flow on the 4km long route, Lee said 10 checkpoints would be set up.
Last year, more than 549,000 people took advantage of the service, a record high since Taipei began the service in 2004, said Cheng Chia-liang (鄭佳良), director of the city’s Public Transportation Office, adding that the number could jump to 600,000 this year.
Cheng said the city was not worried about the increasing number of people using the service, but about the concentration of people using it on the final days of the holiday.
About 100,000 to 160,000 people used the service on the final two days of the six-day service last year, he said, while the first day saw the lowest number, at 40,000.
Cheng said the city planned to send as many as 50 buses during peak hours from 9am to 2pm, compared with last year’s 45.
In addition to the free shuttle services, the city has prepared 600 sets of tools for hire, which will require a NT$500 deposit for two hours use.
Each bag contains a pair of burlap gloves, a dustpan, two sickles and a rake.
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