Cyclists in Taipei City who park their bicycles on sidewalks or porches illegally could have their bicycles towed starting next week, as Taipei City Government is stepping up efforts to address illegal bicycle parking across the city.
The Police Department’s Traffic Division will start towing illegally parked bicycles around MRT Technology Building Station next week after the plan was formally approved by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) on Tuesday last week.
Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧), director of the division, said the Department of Transportation began drafting the plan last year to address growing complaints about bicycles illegally parked around MRT stations and on sidewalks across the city.
To avoid disputes, officers from the division will take a photo of illegally parked bicycles before cutting the locks and towing them, Fang said. The owners could be required to pay a towing fee of about NT$100 and face a fine between NT$300 and NT$600.
While there are no registration numbers on bicycles, Fang said the division would ask cyclists to bring IDs when claiming the bicycles. Another measure to prevent towed bicycles being falsely claimed would involve requiring owners to have a picture taken with their bicycles and sign a form, Fang said.
If more than one person showed up to claim a towed bicycle, police would look into the case and charge the bogus claimant with larceny and invasion of property.
“We are happy to see more and more people using bicycles as transportation tools, but we need to address the issue of illegal bicycle parking and do a better job on bicycle management,” he said.
If the plan is successful, the division intends to expand bicycle towing to areas around other major MRT stations including Gongguan and Taipei City Hall stations.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai