Public transport failures
The removal and reconstruction of the Gongguan roundabout in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正), originally scheduled to take 65 days as proposed by the design team and approved by city officials, was shortened to just 17 days and officially completed on Monday.
While Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) administration has been publicizing this achievement, it fails to recognize that completing the project in just one-quarter of the originally planned time highlights major miscalculations in the original design and approval process. That not only misled the public, but also suggests that the extended construction period might have been used to inflate the project’s budget. The city officials who approved the original plan should feel ashamed.
If the designer’s misjudgment of the construction period led to an inflated budget — with the city government paying the full contract amount even though the work was finished in just one-quarter of the estimated time — the city government would have incurred losses from being overcharged.
According to Article 63 of the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法), such contracts must stipulate “the responsibility of one party in the event that erroneous execution, falsity or poor management has caused damages to the other party.” Thus, the city government should hold the designer accountable for any design errors and seek compensation for the resulting losses.
Just one day after the completion of the roundabout’s removal, the intersection saw severe traffic congestion during morning rush hour. Routes leading into the city from Taipei’s Wenshan (文山) and Xindian (新店) districts via Roosevelt Road were completely jammed. Xinglong Road (興隆路) and Xinhai Road (辛亥路) were also affected. The resulting public outcry made it clear that the original planning and design were flawed. Chiang and the other city officials responsible should come forward and apologize, and those accountable should step down or face disciplinary action.
The Taipei City Government should also hold the contracted planning and design firm accountable for any errors in accordance with the aforementioned laws, including seeking compensation.
The Chiang administration refused to listen to the public. Removing the Gongguan roundabout and filling in the bus-only underpass was as absurd as proposing to demolish the Keelung Road underpass in front of City Hall. The project is undoubtedly the main reason why traffic has suddenly become so congested. It is too late to undue the damage, but how would city officials explain themselves to the many people now affected?
The government must urgently work to find a solution, for instance by constructing a new road to connect Wenshan District with the city center.
Su Chiang-hai
Taipei
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)
RSS