Members of the tourism industry in eastern Taiwan yesterday called for immediate action by the government to improve the transportation situation and relieve their imminent loss of business from the closure of the Suhua Highway.
A section of the Suhua Highway between Suao (蘇澳) and Tongao (東澳) was closed on Saturday after a road collapsed because of heavy rain, resulting in mass cancellations of hotel reservations for the Christmas and New Year holidays.
While railway and air traffic were unaffected, tickets have been difficult to come by, so tourists canceled their reservations, hotel owners in Hualien County and Taitung County told a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, organized by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and Liu Chao-hao (劉櫂豪).
The Suhua Highway has been closed at least 35 times between 2008 and this year, including 18 times this year alone, Hsiao said, adding that the closures have caused business losses of more than NT$1 billion (US$34.43 million) in eastern Taiwan this year.
The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) aims to resume operations of one traffic lane at the section for small passenger vehicles by Dec. 31 and hopes to make the section accessible to motor vehicles weighing less than 20 tonnes before the Lunar New Year holiday next year.
Hsiao urged the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC) to repair the highway as soon as possible and to consider her proposal of establishing a sea-lane transportation route along the east coast that would resolve the decades-long traffic issue, because traffic in the region is facing a five-year “dark period” before a new highway is completed in 2017.
A ferry could carry up to 350 sedans or 33 buses, Hsiao said, adding that her proposal is achievable because the Shipping Act (航業法) allows the MOTC to compensate vessel carriers on specific routes.
The MOTC should take this issue seriously, he said, because it is hard for government officials or the people of western Taiwan to imagine the misery caused for Hualien and Taitung residents.
“They have to try to book [train and flight] tickets online at midnight — more often than not, they fail to get any,” Liu said.
Liang Ching-cheng (梁清政), chairman of the Promised Land Resort (理想大地) association, said he has run tourism businesses in Hualien for 30 years and traffic “has been a nightmare for decades,” with railway tickets in limited supply and the coastal highway often being closed because of landslides.
The issue has not only affected the tourism business, but also residents’ livelihood and safety, he said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS