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.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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