New Taipei City should let its residents decide on the design for door number signs after complaints that the proposed designs for odd-numbered buildings were ugly and inauspicious, New Taipei City Councilor Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城) said.
The city government has allocated NT$70 million (US$2.3 million) in next year’s budget to redesign all building number and road signs to give them a unified appearance.
The sample door signs seen so far would have even numbers on a red background with white lettering, while odd numbers would be placed on yellow backgrounds with black lettering.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
Lee on Saturday said that residents have complained that the yellow-and-black combination is too ugly and too similar to glyphs handed out by temples to ward off spirits.
The city government should take a page out of Taoyuan’s book and hold a competition to choose new designs, he said, adding that it could hold Internet polls and invite designers to judge the designs.
Such a move would increase residents’ sense of participation in city affairs and would also prevent civil servants from creating designs that are aesthetically displeasing or fail to match the need of the city’s residents, Lee said.
New Taipei City Department of Civil Affairs Director Chiang Chun-ting (江俊霆) said the signs were not unified when the then-Taipei County was elevated to special municipality in 2010.
The current samples were based on designs from other nations and were intended to increase visibility at night, Chiang said, adding that the designs had not been finalized.
Opening the design effort to a public vote was a viable option and could be discussed, Chiang said.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
RSS