The launch of the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line will likely affect passenger volumes at Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said after a ride on the new line yesterday, calling on the Executive Yuan to help streamline efforts by Taipei and Taoyuan to relocate the Songshan facility.
Ko and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) rode the MRT line, which opened this month on a trial basis.
Ko praised the “excellent” construction quality of the line, saying that the ride was “smooth and comfortable.”
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
He was equally complimentary of outlets in the carriages for passengers to charge mobile devices, as well as free Wi-Fi connectivity, saying that he had instructed Taipei Rapid Transit Corp to offer free Wi-Fi services in Taipei MRT carriages by the end of the year.
The launch of the airport MRT provided an outlook on Songshan airport’s future, Ko said.
Ko said that he and Cheng would ask the Executive Yuan to streamline efforts by the two municipalities to relocate Songshan airport, as the highest level of collaboration is required to complete the task.
Ko’s administration has proposed a plan to merge Songshan airport with Taoyuan airport by 2020, with a central park planned to be built at the Songshan site.
Taoyuan airport’s third terminal, of which construction is to begin next month, and a planned fourth terminal should be able to process the passenger volume from Songshan airport, the Ko administration said.
Ko said he was concerned about the line’s terminal station next to Taipei Railway Station being overwhelmed by people using the new line.
“I believe that the A1 Station needs to be expanded,” he said.
“Taoyuan airport processes about 40 million passengers every year and if quarter of them travel to Taipei, the A1 Station would be overwhelmed,” Ko said.
Ko said that his estimate on passenger volume was made after factoring in airport employees and visitors to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei.
Ko said Cheng should be commended for launching the new MRT line within his first two years in office, ending a protracted construction period of 20 years.
The line is to offer limited numbers of free rides beginning today until March 1, Taoyuan Mass Transit Corp said.
To take a free ride on the line before March 2, people can get a numbered tag at stations on the line at 7:40am, 9:40am, 11:40am or 1:40pm each day.
About 20,000 numbered tags are to be distributed at the line’s 21 stations each day, with about 1,200 tags per day to be handed out at the A1 Station.
A check-in and bag-drop service for airport passengers will be available between 8am and 4pm at the A1 Station during the trial period, Taoyuan Mass Transit said.
China Airlines and EVA Air have check-in counters at the A1 Station, as will their respective subsidiaries, Mandarin Airlines and UNI Air, it said.
Taoyuan Mass Transit said it has introduced six self-service bag-drop machines at the A1 Station.
Trains on the new line are to run from 6am to 11pm when commercial operations begin.
Additional reporting by CNA
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
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods