Of the mere 5.3 percent of Greater Taichung residents polled who reported having ridden the municipality’s newly launched Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, only 16.9 percent said they were satisfied with the transport service, the results of a survey conducted by the Greater Taichung Development Association and released yesterday showed.
Participants in the opinion poll conducted from Tuesday to Thursday last week gave Greater Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) a grade of 48.1 points for his launch of the BRT system, the association said.
Of the Greater Taichung residents surveyed, only 5.3 percent said they have used the new bus service and of these, 16.9 percent reported being satisfied with the service and 25.5 percent said they would now change the way they travel, the results showed.
A majority of those polled — 66.2 percent — said they do not think the BRT will solve the city’s traffic problem, but 50.6 percent said they think Greater Taichung still needs the blue line BRT system, while 68.6 percent support constructing an MRT network in the municipality.
When asked about the policy of eliminating bus fares for commutes of up to 8km, 55.2 percent of residents polled said they have used the free ride service, with 33.4 percent saying the program had altered how they commute in the city.
The data showed that 59.5 percent of respondents would be more willing to use the bus system if the frequency of buses is increased.
On July 26, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took a 3.5km ride on the BRT route along Taiwan Boulevard on the eve of the opening of the system’s year-long free service, after which he lauded Hu for establishing the bus network, deeming it as good as a subway system.
Commenting on the survey, the Democratic Progressive Party’s Greater Taichung mayoral candidate Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said he is not opposed to the BRT, but that Hu had inaugurated an incomplete system by rushing the launch to boost his approval ratings ahead of the Nov. 29 elections.
Lin said that if elected, he will set up a special panel to improve the BRT system, while also pushing for the creation of an MRT network, reviewing the 8km free bus ride policy to extend it to those living in more remote areas of the city, as well as bidding to increase the number of routes and frequency of buses.
“Greater Taichung’s BRT is not a real BRT in that it fails to provide passengers full transfer information and lacks careful planning, which has consequently seen the service stigmatized among the public,” said Wang Yi-chuan (王義川), chair of the Department of Transportation and Logistics at Toko University.
Public Transportation Association president Lee Wen-chieh (李文傑) said the Greater Taichung Government inaugurated the BRT with an incomplete transfer information mechanism after the project’s construction was repeatedly postponed, adding that this hastiness had made the BRT a complete joke.
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,