Taipei’s MRT Luzhou Line began a two-day final inspection yesterday and is scheduled to start trial operations by the end of this month.
Taipei City’s Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS) invited an inspection committee composed of transportation and civil engineering experts to conduct a two-day inspection of the engineering, equipment installation and operation of the system.
The committee visited the line’s Luzhou Station and Daqiaotou Station yesterday afternoon, and will continue the inspection today at the Zhongxiao-Xinsheng Station and Luzhou depot before announcing the results of the inspection in the afternoon.
The inspection committee finished a preliminary inspection last month, and listed 24 flaws including problems with signs, elevators for the disabled and fire alarms.
Department Commissioner Richard Chen (陳椿亮) said the department fixed all the flaws identified last month and the quality and safety of the line should pass the final inspection.
The 6.4km line, construction of which started in 2002, will connect Luzhou and Sanchong in Taipei County to downtown Taipei City.
According to DORTS, more than 200,000 commuters are expected to use the line each day. It will take about 19 minutes to get from -Luzhou Station to Zhongxiao--Xinsheng Station, and about 21 minutes from Luzhou Station to Taipei Main Station.
The line was originally scheduled to open in December.
However, Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City councilors have accused the Taipei City Government of trying to move the date forward to early next month before the grand opening of the Taipei International Flora Exo on Nov. 6, to help promote the event and boost support for Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) ahead of the Taipei mayoral election on Nov. 27.
Chen declined to confirm when operations would begin on the line and said the department will not make a final decision until all the problems identified in the final inspection are resolved.
The line’s Xingtian Temple Station and Zhongshan Elementary School Station are within walking distance of the flora expo site in Xinsheng Park. Taipei City Department of Transportation Commissioner Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢) said the department would offer shuttle buses at other MRT stations to transport visitors to and from the venue if the line opens next month.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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