Professors, engineers, civic groups and others yesterday again urged the New Taipei City (新北市) Government to list the suspension bridge at Bitan (碧潭) scenic spot as a cultural heritage site to protect it from possible damage from a nearby urban renewal project.
Chuang Ting-yu (莊婷宇), a member of the Organization of Urban Re-s (OURs), said engineers have reported that the planned construction of a number of 26-story apartment buildings could damage the 76-year-old bridge, maybe even causing it to collapse.
“No matter which option is adopted — either digging 15m underground about 1m from the closest bridge pier, or moving the bridge pier forward by up to 4m — the bridge will be destabilized,” she said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
The protesters in February halted the planned construction for a few months by applying to have the bridge assessed as a cultural heritage site. However, the local government only agreed to list it as a temporary cultural heritage site and is to review today whether it should be a permanent site.
Perng Ming-hwei (彭明輝), a former National Tsing Hua University professor, said the Bitan suspension bridge is listed among “Taiwan’s eight views and 12 scenic spots” and is an important site to many people living in the area.
“The construction project will destroy both the historic and natural scenery in the area,” he said, adding that it is unfair that while more than half of the project’s base is on public land, the planned apartment buildings will only provide access to a few people and will mar the natural scenery that attracts visitors to the area.
Liou Gin-show (劉俊秀), a professor at National Chiao Tung University’s Department of Civil Engineering, said the bridge was built and designed by Taiwanese engineers in 1937 and is the last remaining bridge featuring a unique tungsten steel ball-bearing design in the world.
Peitou Association chairperson Dai Show-fen (戴秀芬) added that many Taiwanese writers and painters have created works that include the Bitan suspension bridge.
“If we don’t save the bridge, no amount of money can buy its history and our collective memories back,” she said.
Citing other old bridges that have been listed as culture heritage sites, such as a bridge in Nantou County built of stones mixed with glutinous rice in 1941, the old Dasi Bridge in Yilan built in 1941 and the Sanxia Arch Bridge in New Taipei City built in 1933, a local resident surnamed Lin (林) said that the Bitan suspension bridge also deserves to be listed as a culture heritage site given its age and the skills involved in its construction.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching