Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday ordered the capital’s Department of Transportation to address accident and traffic jam “hot spots,” in addition to existing work on illegal parking hot spots.
He made his remarks during the city government’s monthly traffic report.
Department Commissioner Chung Hui-yu (鐘慧諭) said that traffic jams would be difficult to address by focusing on hot spots, because the road network is largely fixed.
Department officials also said that, because traffic deaths showed patterns of randomness, it would be difficult to achieve reductions by targeting hot spots.
Ko also expressed dissatisfaction with progress in addressing illegal parking hot spots, saying that if he did not see improvement by the end of the year, he would “settle accounts” with Chung.
“We recently began adding parking spaces, but the result is that cars have gone into alleyways instead,” Ko said.
Department officials said that the problem would clear up as soon as fees are charged for alleyway parking spaces later this year.
The city government is to begin charging parking fees for all city parking spaces, starting with major roads.
Department officials said addressing illegal parking was difficult, because it was concentrated in residential areas, drawing an incredulous response from Ko.
“What is so difficult about fining them?” he said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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