A city government survey held prior to the seventh anniversary of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) inauguration today showed a 78 percent approval rate for the mayor's overall performance.
The city's quality of life received the highest approval rate, with 80.2 percent of interviewees saying they were satisfied with living conditions in Taipei, the survey said.
As a year-end examination of the mayor's performance, the Taipei City Government's Research, Development and Evaluation Committee yesterday published the result of its annual survey on the different municipal developments, in which the top three projects in terms of citizen approval rates were the launch of "Easy Card" -- the first IC card for mass transport in Taipei -- the "per bag" trash collection fee policy and the public sewage system.
The trash collection and sewage system projects were launched to improve the city's living environment. According to the city government, since the launch of the trash collection fee system in 2000, which requires residents to buy specially-designed trash bags to dispose of residential garbage, the city's trash has been reduced by about 33 percent. Ma has promised that by the year 2010, the city will reach the goal of "zero trash, 100 percent recycling."
Meanwhile, the city's sewage system currently serves about 77.3 percent of city residents, and is expected to reach 80 percent next year -- a number that the city government said qualified the system to be competitive with those of other major cities around the world.
In other categories, about 70 percent of interviewees said they were satisfied with the city's public security; environmental developments also received more than a 70 percent approval rate.
Construction and cultural activities promotion were categories that interviewees said require more effort, with each receiving around 60 percent approval.
The telephone survey was conducted on Dec. 15, 16 and 19 by the committee, targeting Taipei residents aged 20 or older. The sample size was 1,113 respondents, and the margin of error was 2.9 percentage points.
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