With road expansion related to the construction of Taipei Dome complex under way, Taipei residents say work on a sidewalk near Guangfu S Road is seriously threatening their safety, while stores close to the construction site say business has dropped significantly since the project began last month.
The road expansion has seen Farglory Land Development Co. (遠雄建設) fence off an area on the sidewalk more than 100m long, leaving a narrow 2m-wide strip for pedestrians and cyclists to use.
Couples pushing babies in strollers and people in wheelchairs were sharing the passageway with people on YouBikes yesterday, while a cross-country cycling team also went dashing through.
Photo: Sean Lin, Taipei Times
Residents living nearby said the situation has continued for almost three weeks.
Pedestrians questioned by reporters said the project has caused them great inconvenience.
“It is really quite inconvenient for road users. I wonder why the Taipei Dome project has occupied the sidewalk to such an extent. This is over the top,” a passer-by surnamed Chien (簡) said.
“It is really dangerous, just terrifying,” another pedestrian surnamed Hsieh (謝) said, referring to a hoist operating behind a fence near the sidewalk.
Store owners near the fenced-off area of the project are also up in arms.
A woman surnamed Lee (李), who owns an ice-cream parlor, said fewer people have visited her shop since the road expansion began, as many people now avoid the area by taking detours, while another woman surnamed Chiu (邱), who runs a collectors’ store, said her shop has seen a sharp decrease in the number of customers.
Meanwhile, Songshan Tree Protection Volunteer Union member Kuo Tai-yan (郭台晏) accused Farglory of intruding on the sidewalk by setting up fences around several trees it plans to relocate.
She said that the corporation provided a document signed by former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and then cordoned off the trees, even though Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has said that the relocation of trees should not begin before Farglory works out a consensus with the union.
Farglory spokesperson Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) said the expansion forms part of the Taipei Dome project, adding that the Taipei City Government approved the company’s application to carry out the work.
He said that the current level of construction is only the beginning of what is required by the dome project because the entire sidewalk is set to be demolished to make way for two additional lanes on Guangfu S Road, while a new sidewalk closer to the complex has been planned.
The tree protection volunteers at the site are the ones who are illegally occupying the sidewalk by setting up booths, he said, adding that the fences will remain until the day the union removes its booths from the sidewalk.
An official at the Construction Planning Office, who asked to remain anonymous, said there is nothing the agency can do to resolve the standoff between the two parties, as all of the aforementioned actions by Farglory are legal.
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