The Maokong cable car system, a municipal project aimed at developing tourist and recreational potential in the Muzha (
The cable car, which travels between Maokong (貓空), a popular destination for tea-tasting, and Taipei Municipal Zoo, is also designed to ease traffic over the mountain and shorten traveling time to Maokong to about 13 minutes.
According to Lee Shu-chuan (
"The completion date keeps being delayed because the nine-month test run period can't be shortened," Lee said yesterday during the launch ceremony of the test run period at the cable car's Taipei Zoo Station.
The cable car system was built and installed by POMA, a French company, and has five sections, six intermediate terminals, 145 cabins and two cable loops. The line is 4km with a capacity of 8 passen-gers per cabin, transporting 2400 passengers per hour at 6m per second. A one-way ticket will cost NT$50 (US$ 1.50), Lee said.
Attending the launch ceremony, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"But I hope that the operation of the cable car will help to develop the recreational industry and bring prosperity to the southern area of the city," Ma said.
The New Construction Department planned to finish the project before Ma finished his eight-year term by the end of this month to add one more construction to his municipal achievements, but the French company insisted that the nine-month test run period could not be shortened.
Although the cable car passes through attractions including the zoo, Maokong and Chih-nan Temple (
Ma yesterday also led the press to visit several other major municipal constructions, including Taipei Arena, Taipei Songshan Airport Underpass, Neihu Technology Park, and Nankang Software Park.
During his "graduation tour" before leaving the city government, Ma recounted the city government's successes in building the city-wide wireless system, expanding MRT lines, and renovating sidewalk pavements, and said he expected Taipei Mayor-elect Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to continue projects including the renovation of traditional markets.
After finishing his term as Taipei mayor, Ma plans to focus on his duty as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman.
Ma pledged to continue the reform efforts in the KMT.
"As for the mayoral special allowance scandal, whether or not it will influence my bid in the 2008 presidential election is not that important to me ... What matters most is to let people know that I am a person with consistency," he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS