There will be no permanent sitting ban in the main hall of the Taipei Railway Station, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said yesterday, adding that it has placed smiley face decals on the floor to welcome all visitors.
The agency in May said that it would make the temporary ban on sitting on the hall’s floor — imposed as part of disease-prevention measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic — permanent to ensure foot traffic inside the station would not be disrupted.
The announcement infuriated many people, including migrant workers and their supporters, triggering sit-in protests in the hall.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Opponents of the ban said the main hall is a public space that should be accessible to everyone, and the move would further restrict the number of places in Taipei for migrant workers to meet on their days off.
The TRA held two seminars, on May 26 and June 3, to hear from civic groups, non-governmental organizations and experts on how the main hall should be used.
Civic groups held their own meetings on June 11 and Tuesday, reaching a consensus that the main hall should remain open to the public and be used to facilitate civic participation, the TRA said.
“To create a more user-friendly environment, our first step was to put 10 different smiley face decals on the floor to show that the main hall can be used for various purposes and all people are welcome to access the facility,” the agency said.
The word “smile” was translated into 10 languages — Mandarin, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai and Malaysian — with the decals placed in squares next to the smiley faces to highlight the floor’s checkerboard pattern.
All the decals had been placed by yesterday morning, it said.
“The checkerboard pattern in the main hall has been around for many years, but the use of the public space should be more diverse. Our hope is that people, be they standing or sitting, can come to the main hall and find a place they belong,” it added.
“We will later release proposals on how the main hall should be used to meet diverse demands from the public, including installing seating and allowing non-governmental groups to access the area,” it said.
“These moves demonstrate our commitment to fulfilling our social responsibility and to making the Taipei Railway Station’s main hall a landmark for cultural diversity that is friendly to all,” it said.
Given that COVID-19 has been contained domestically, event organizers are welcome to rent TRA station facilities, provided that participants follow social-distancing guidelines, wear masks and wash their hands frequently, it added.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
DANGEROUS DRIVERS: The proposal follows a fatal incident on Monday involving a 78-year-old driver, which killed three people and injured 12 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said it would lower the age for elderly drivers to renew their license from 75 to 70 as part of efforts to address safety issues caused by senior motorists. The new policy was proposed in light of a deadly incident on Monday in New Taipei City’s Sansia District (三峽), in which a 78-year-old motorist surnamed Yu (余) sped through a school zone, killing three people and injuring 12. Last night, another driver sped down a street in Tainan’s Yuching District (玉井), killing one pedestrian and injuring two. The incidents have sparked public discussion over whether seniors
RSS