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
Taiwan has lost Trump. Or so a former State Department official and lobbyist would have us believe. Writing for online outlet Domino Theory in an article titled “How Taiwan lost Trump,” Christian Whiton provides a litany of reasons that the William Lai (賴清德) and Donald Trump administrations have supposedly fallen out — and it’s all Lai’s fault. Although many of Whiton’s claims are misleading or ill-informed, the article is helpfully, if unintentionally, revealing of a key aspect of the MAGA worldview. Whiton complains of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s “inability to understand and relate to the New Right in America.” Many
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month raised its travel alert for China’s Guangdong Province to Level 2 “Alert,” advising travelers to take enhanced precautions amid a chikungunya outbreak in the region. More than 8,000 cases have been reported in the province since June. Chikungunya is caused by the chikungunya virus and transmitted to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes, most commonly Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. These species thrive in warm, humid climates and are also major vectors for dengue, Zika and yellow fever. The disease is characterized by high fever and severe, often incapacitating joint pain.
In nature, there is a group of insects known as parasitoid wasps. Their reproductive process differs entirely from that of ordinary wasps — the female lays her eggs inside or on the bodies of other insects, and, once hatched, the larvae feed on the host’s body. The larvae do not kill the host insect immediately; instead, they carefully avoid vital organs, allowing the host to stay alive until the larvae are fully mature. That living reservoir strategy ensures a stable and fresh source of nutrients for the larvae as they grow. However, the host’s death becomes only a matter of time. The resemblance
Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade. According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It
RSS