Discounts for EasyCard use are to be canceled as part of an adjustment of public transportation ticket prices, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
He said that the discounts would be canceled to make accounting simpler for the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) which has been shouldering the cost of the discounts.
EasyCard users currently enjoy a 20 percent discount on MRT rides along with an additional 20 percent discount for transfers between the MRT and city buses.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Ko added that the canceling of the discounts would not necessarily entail a price hike, because it would be paired with the implementation of a new formula for calculating public transportation usage fees.
“In the future, the MRT, city buses and the YouBike system will all be viewed as parts of Taipei’s public transportation system,” Ko said. “Switching to a different mode of transportation within 30 minutes will be considered a single trip.”
He said usage fees would be charged using a complicated formula based on distance, with more charged for the first leg of the trip, adding that the city would announce its plan in February next year and afterward send it to the city council for approval.
“The [EasyCard] discount was originally implemented to help popularize the EasyCard,” Department of Transportation Commissioner Chung Hui-yu (鍾慧諭) said. “Its removal can be considered now that the EasyCard is widely used.”
According to the Department of Transportation, public transportation ticket prices have remained unchanged for 16 years, with new prices to go into effect in 2017 if approved by the Taipei City Council.
Meanwhile, Ko also confirmed that city benefits for elderly residents would be reviewed with the aim of excluding the wealthy.
“There is a finite quantity of money and in the future we intend to create a ‘heap’ of new benefits,” Ko said, adding that it was not realistic to expect everyone to benefit equally, because the money should go to those who truly need it.
He added that while the total amount of money spent on all social services in next year’s city budget would not change, funds that benefited the elderly would be “transferred” to funds aimed at children, such as daycare services.
The Department of Social Welfare said that an eligibility threshold for benefits for the elderly could include a number of factors such as income tax brackets, family income and property.
Currently, all elderly people in Taipei regardless of income are eligible for free bus rides and yearly “Double Ninth Festival” cash payments. Coupled with city-financed living and National Health Insurance subsidies, the city budgets NT$5.8 billion (US$187.3 million) in annual benefits for its 380,000 elderly residents, whose numbers are increasing by 10,000 to 20,000 every year, according to department estimates.
Federation for the Welfare of the Elderly secretary-general Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) said that free bus ride subsidies should not be cut, because they encourage the elderly to participate in society.
She added that cuts to Double Ninth Festival cash payments were worth considering.
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