Taipei mayor-elect Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tsung-hsien’s (林聰賢) proposal yesterday to back direct rail service between Taipei and Yilan was yesterday criticized by transport experts, who said that such an important decision should not be made by politicians alone.
Former National Chiao Tung University associate professor Huang Tai-shen (黃台生) said the purpose of Ko and Lin’s meeting was for the two men to show support for the project.
However, the proposal would have to be evaluated by the Environmental Protection Administration’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Committee, to determine the project’s viability, Huang said.
National Taiwan University professor Jason Chang (張學孔) said that while he applauded Ko’s efforts to collaborate with county commissioners in an attempt to raise the overall standard of the Greater Taipei area’s transportation infrastructure, Ko should consult professionals over potentially problematic issues.
“The Railway Reconstruction Bureau has done a comprehensive study of the proposed project’s impact on the transportation system as well as on the environment,” Chang said, suggesting Ko talk with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications first before he made any specific decisions.
Taiwan Water Conservation Union spokesperson Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) called on Ko to understand the geography of the area where the proposed rail line would run, and gain a proper perspective of the implications.
“The proposed route is in a fault zone — a collection of fault lines — and is susceptible to landslides, not to mention that it would pass through Feitsui Reservoir’s (翡翠水庫) catchment area, which is an ecologically sensitive zone,” she said. “There are other municipalities that have a much more urgent need to develop transportation systems than Taipei. Ko should consult his staff and carry out a comprehensive assessment before making decisions.”
Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan member Tsai Chung-Yueh (蔡中岳) said it is almost impossible that the route proposed by Lin would pass an EIA, given its potential destructive impact on Greater Taipei’s water resources.
“Ko’s ‘fast, furious, and effective’ way of working while connecting patients to the extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation system will not work in this case, not with how an EIA works,” he said. “Ko should gain an understanding of the plan, not just listen to Lin’s side of the story.”
Railway Reconstruction Bureau Deputy Director-General Tang Jih-horng (唐繼宏) said that the bureau had previously proposed two different routes to be considered for the project, adding that in an April meeting representatives from the Taipei City Government opposed the proposed route cutting through the reservoir.
“We have chosen the route that would bypass the reservoir and have already conducted assessments on the project’s impact on the environment, with the final report scheduled to be submitted at the beginning of next year,” Tang said.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Frank Fan (范植谷) said the ministry respects the local governments’ opinions on the project, adding that there is room for further discussion as the project is still at the planning stage.
The route endorsed by Ko and Lin was the bureau’s first proposed option — to run from NanKang RailwaymStation to South of Toucheng Township (頭城) in Yilan County.
The second option would connect Taipei’s Nangang (南港) District and Toucheng, which is about 53km away. However, it would be constructed by going through Shuansi District (雙溪) in New Taipei City and Dasi(大溪) in Yilan County.
Construction costs for the two projects are estimated at NT$45.8 billion and NT$49.1 billion respectively (US$1.47 billion and US$1.58 billion).
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
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
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