Incoming minister of transportation and communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) has indicated his intention to scrap a government plan to build a new direct rail route between Taipei and Yilan, a local daily newspaper reported yesterday.
Hochen, who is to assume office under the new administration of president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to be sworn in on May 20, also expressed his opposition to a proposal to include the Dongao (東澳)-Nanao (南澳) section in the Suhua Highway improvement project, in an interview published by the Chinese-language China Times.
The Taipei-Yilan direct rail route plan, which is expected to cost NT$50 billion (US$1.55 billion), was designed to reduce travel time to eastern Taiwan, but the minister-designate questioned the cost-efficiency of spending tens of billions of New Taiwan dollars just to cut travel time, saying the ministry should evaluate the plan more carefully.
He said that although residents in the eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung and tourists heading to the areas are hoping for shorter travel times, the government should consider the tourism characteristics of different areas and promote the idea of “slow travel.”
Another key issue is adjusting train dispatching and ticket prices to allow residents in eastern Taiwan to purchase train tickets more easily, he said.
Hochen also said that building a tunnel between Dongao and Nanao would not reduce accidents, which he said are caused by the large number of gravel trucks driving along the highway.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan has activated backup communications for its northernmost territory, the remote and strategically located island of Dongyin (東引), after poor weather conditions apparently shifted the wreckage of a ship onto an undersea cable causing it to break. The vulnerability of undersea communication cables linking Taiwan with its outlying islands has been a persistent cause of concern for Taipei, whose government has on several occasions blamed Chinese ships for intentionally causing damage. Dongyin, home to about 1,500 people, sits in a strategic position at the top of the Taiwan Strait and the island has a heavy military presence. It does not have an
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