Taipei City inaugurated a public bicycle rental system at five sites in Xinyi District (信義) yesterday.
A total of 250 “YouBike” bicycles are now available for rent at MRT Taipei City Hall Station, the east side of the Taipei City Hall, Exhibition Hall 3 of Taipei World Trade Center, the Xinyi District Office and the sidewalk across the street from the Grand Hyatt Taipei Hotel.
The rentals will be free of charge during the trial period, which runs until April 10. Thereafter, the rental fee will be NT$40 for the first 30 minutes and NT$10 for every 15 minutes after that, the Department of Transportation said.
Department of Transportation Commissioner Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢) said the rental fees could be paid with an EasyCard, but renters would have to pay a NT$3,000 deposit using a credit card.
The deposit will be confiscated if the bike is not returned within 24 hours, Luo said.
At a ceremony to inaugurate the rental service, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the public bicycles will become a popular transportation tool and he promised to extend the city’s bike routes along with the expansion of the rental service.
Six more rental spots will be opened starting April 11: Exhibition Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, New York New York Mall, Xinyi Junior High School and on Songren Road in Sanchangli (三張犁).
Hau said the bike rental service would be expanded to major MRT stations in the city, including Gongguan, Yuanshan and Jiantan stations, and around top tourist attractions such as the Shilin Night Market in the near future.
The mayor said a 50km-long bike route would be established in downtown Taipei by the end of this year to promote “green transportation.”
Giant Manufacturing Co chairman King Liu (劉金標), whose company sponsored the public bicycle system, invited the public to enjoy a bike ride around the city.
Kaohsiung City inaugurated a similar bicycle rental network in January.
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
RSS