A revolutionary plan to transform the Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) into a “grand central park area” will create a “green lung” in the city and revitalize the city’s old and dilapidated west side, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) said yesterday.
Yao, one of five hopefuls in the DPP’s primary for the Taipei mayoral election, told a press conference that his proposal would be “an urban revolution which is able to generate an output value of up to NT$10 trillion [US$329.3 billion].”
The ambitious plan would make the airport a park connected with a number of other parks along the Keelung River, including the Taipei Expo Park, the Xinsheng (新生) Park, the Dajia (大佳) Riverside Park, the Yingfeng (迎風) Riverside Park, the Meiti (美堤) Riverside Park, the Guanshan (觀山) Riverside Park and the Rainbow Riverside Park to form a grand park of about 400 hectares, Yao said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
The proposed park, which would be larger than the 260 hectare Hyde Park in London and the 340 hectare Central Park in New York City, could change the microclimate and the urban heat island phenomenon in Taipei, he said.
More importantly, the elimination of the airport will be crucial for making the city’s west side, which has long been the least-developed and poorest district in Taipei, prosperous again, Yao said.
With construction bans and building restrictions in place in the areas adjacent to the airport, it will be difficult to develop the west side, in particular Datong District(大同), the constituency which he represents, Yao said.
If the plan materializes, Minzu E Road, Minzu W Road and Minquan E Road could become “a Fifth Avenue in Taipei,” and a social housing project of up to 10,000 apartments and government-driven urban renewal will be possible, since all restrictions will be removed, Yao said.
The idea was not his invention, Yao added, as elimination of the airport had been a campaign platform for past DPP mayoral candidates, such as Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) in 2002 and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) in 2006.
Losing the airport will not be a concern as the Taoyuan International Airport MRT line, which connects Taipei and the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, is scheduled to start operating next year and passengers would travel to and from that airport in less than 40 minutes, he said.
Yao added that those who drive could also arrive at the airport in less than 40 minutes from Taipei via the Wugu-Yangmei Overpass (五楊高架橋).
Yao also suggested that moving the Presidential Office Building to the proposed park would be a good idea to address security issues, which were heatedly discussed after a recent incident involving a man crashing his truck into the office’s front door.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,