House prices in Taipei have been shockingly high for some time, which has led to the rise of house prices in New Taipei City and Taoyuan. Many of those who work in Taipei, but cannot afford to buy a house or an apartment in northern Taiwan choose to live in Yilan County.
It is well known that the cost of living in Yilan is much lower than in Taipei. As a result, a great number of people commute between Yilan County and Taipei every day.
A new monthly transportation pass program was recently announced by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, and it has generated attention from the public. The inter-city monthly pass would allow commuters to have unlimited access to Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) systems and highway buses, neither of which are included in Taipei’s and New Taipei City’s monthly passes.
The inclusion of the TRA systems and highway buses is especially beneficial for commuters who do not live in the metropolitan area. Many Yilan residents who work in Taipei or Taoyuan would find the NT$1,200 monthly pass extremely cost-effective. Traveling between Yilan and Taipei via the Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway — also known as Freeway No. 5 — is their daily commute. They travel to earn a living, not for fun.
Regrettably, although the monthly pass program includes Taoyuan’s Jhungli (中壢) and Yangmei (楊梅) districts, it has excluded the towns of Toucheng (頭城) and Jiaosi (礁溪) in Yilan.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan and Yilan constitute a shared residential sphere, and this should be a consensus shared by leaders in those places. Their common goal should be to improve inter-city transportation together.
It has always been the central government’s priority to reduce traffic along Freeway No. 5 during rush hour. If Yilan can be incorporated into the monthly pass program, more people would opt for public transportation rather than driving individually. Hence, traffic congestion can be mitigated and carbon emissions reduced. It would be a win-win situation for the government and commuters.
City mayors and councilors should work together and include Yilan in the monthly pass program. Collaboration between city and county leaders would rid northern Taiwan of parochialism.
Dino Wei is an information technology engineer from Yilan County.
Translated by Liu Yi-hung
Elbridge Colby, America’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, is the most influential voice on defense strategy in the Second Trump Administration. For insight into his thinking, one could do no better than read his thoughts on the defense of Taiwan which he gathered in a book he wrote in 2021. The Strategy of Denial, is his contemplation of China’s rising hegemony in Asia and on how to deter China from invading Taiwan. Allowing China to absorb Taiwan, he wrote, would open the entire Indo-Pacific region to Chinese preeminence and result in a power transition that would place America’s prosperity
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) first suggested a mass recall of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, the Taipei Times called the idea “not only absurd, but also deeply undemocratic” (“Lai’s speech and legislative chaos,” Jan. 6, page 8). In a subsequent editorial (“Recall chaos plays into KMT hands,” Jan. 9, page 8), the paper wrote that his suggestion was not a solution, and that if it failed, it would exacerbate the enmity between the parties and lead to a cascade of revenge recalls. The danger came from having the DPP orchestrate a mass recall. As it transpired,
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
All 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), formerly of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), survived recall elections against them on Saturday, in a massive loss to the unprecedented mass recall movement, as well as to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that backed it. The outcome has surprised many, as most analysts expected that at least a few legislators would be ousted. Over the past few months, dedicated and passionate civic groups gathered more than 1 million signatures to recall KMT lawmakers, an extraordinary achievement that many believed would be enough to remove at
RSS