Starting today, all tollbooths on freeways, both northbound and southbound, will be closed from 12am to 12pm.
The Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau has decided to close the tollbooths during the Lunar New Year holiday as a way to ease congestion.
As this year's holiday spans two weekends, the tollbooths will not be collecting fees from today until Friday.
PHOTO: LIAO YAO-TUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Those who have installed on-board units for the freeway Electronic Toll Collection system will also not be charged when they pass through toll gates.
They will, however, still hear a confirmation beep and must obey the speed limit when passing through the gates.
All northbound and southbound freeway vehicles will be regulated by the High Occupancy Vehicle Control Policy, which requires that sedans, taxis, large trucks and vehicles with handicapped drivers carry at least three people, including the driver.
Beginning from 6am to 12pm today, the policy will be applied to southbound traffic and will be implemented between Neihu and the Changhua Interchange on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1), between Muzha and the Hsiangshan (香山) Interchange in Hsinchu County on the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) and between Nangang and the Pinglin (坪林) Interchange on the Chiang Wei-shui Freeway (Freeway No. 5).
The policy will not be in effect from Sunday to Thursday.
The policy will then go back into effect on Friday and continue until next Saturday.
From 6am to 1pm, it will govern northbound vehicles from Kaohsiung to the Neili (
Northbound vehicles on the Chiang Wei-shui Freeway will also be required to comply with the regulation from 1pm to 5pm on Friday and next Saturday.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry