New traffic controls on Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway (Freeway No. 5) are to be implemented over the Mid-Autumn Festival weekend from Sept. 22 to Sept. 24, the National Freeway Bureau announced yesterday.
The freeway from Taipei and Yilan, which often becomes severely congested during holidays, is to be toll-free one day before and one day after the holiday period, bureau Director-General Jaw Shing-hau (趙興華) said.
The section is to be toll-free between 6am and 3pm on Sept. 21 and Sept. 25, Jaw said, adding that it is to be the first time the bureau is implementing the measure.
Existing holiday traffic controls would continue on all other freeways, including a unified rate of NT$0.9 per kilometer during non-toll-free hours, a 25 percent discount, the bureau said.
Motorists traveling between Hsinchu and Kaohsiung’s Yanchao District (燕巢) on Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) are to receive an additional 20 percent discount.
However, the standard toll-free first 20km on all freeways is to be suspended during the holiday, the bureau said.
Between 7am and noon on Sept. 22 and Sept. 23, only vehicles with at least three occupants would be allowed to enter Freeway No. 5’s southbound lanes from the Nangang (南港) ramp in Taipei and the Shiding (石碇) and Pinglin (坪林) ramps in New Taipei City, it said.
During the same period, motorists entering Sun Yat-sen Freeway’s (Freeway No. 1) southbound lanes between Taipei’s Neihu (內湖) and Miaoli County’s Toufen (頭份), as well as Freeway No. 3’s southbound lanes between Muzha (木柵) in Taipei and Xiangshan (香山) in Hsinchu County, are also to have high-occupancy vehicle controls.
The same rules are to apply to Freeway No. 5’s northbound lanes from 2pm to 9pm on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24 on the northbound on-ramps in Yilan’s Luodong (羅東) and Suao (蘇澳), and Yilan County’s Toucheng (頭城), it said.
Real-time traffic conditions can be found at http://1968.freeway.gov.tw or on the free Highway 1968 (高速公路1968) mobile app.
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