Scooter riders in Taipei can now pay NT$400 per month for unlimited parking in all of the city’s parking spaces, the Taipei Parking Management and Development Office said.
Transportation Management Division section chief Lo Chih-hao (羅至浩) on Tuesday said the office has launched two new scooter parking measures to lower expenses for riders.
The city charges NT$20 for scooter parking near 16 designated shopping districts, according to the office’s Web site.
Photo: Tsai Ya-hua, Taipei Times
The monthly parking pass can be purchased by filling out a form on the office’s Web site, Lo said, adding that buyers can pay with cash at designated parking lots or through the Pi mobile wallet app or Autopass.
People who pay digitally are to receive a NT$100 discount, he said.
Passes for the following month would be available to purchase starting from the 25th of each month, Lo said.
The office has discontinued its previous three monthly passes, which allowed unlimited scooter parking in areas near the Neihu Science Park, Songshan Railway Station and Shilin Night Market respectively, he said.
The office also said that starting from Sep. 7, riders would only be charged one parking fee per day, no matter how many places the same scooter is parked.
Parking authorities are to check a scooter’s plate number before issuing a ticket to avoid double billing, Lo said.
The new measures benefit scooter riders, as the monthly pass allows people who ride every day to stop receiving daily bills, while those who only ride occasionally, but travel between areas, would only need to pay one fee instead of NT$20 every time they park in a city space, Taipei Department of Transportation Director Chen Hsueh-tai (陳學台) said.
The policy of not billing electric scooters for parking remains in place as part of the city’s efforts to promote green energy, Lo said.
Until the number of registered electric scooters exceeds 13.5 percent of all registered scooters in the city, electric scooter parking would remain free to encourage people to replace fuel-inefficient scooters with green ones, he said.
The office started charging for scooter parking last year to address the large number of scooters parked on city streets, and started with 16 designated shopping districts, as the first part of a four-stage plan, he said.
The goal is to charge for scooter parking everywhere in the city, he added.
The second stage is to begin on Sept. 7, when the office is to charge for scooter parking in 6,500 spaces near MRT stations from Longshan Temple Station to Kunyang Station on the Bannan Line (Blue Line), Lo said.
Parking spaces in downtown areas along the Tamsui-Xinyi Line (Red Line) would be included by the end of the year, he added.
The third stage would expand paid parking to spaces along main roads in the city, and the fourth phase would add spaces along minor roads to cover all areas in the city, he said.
The Executive Yuan yesterday announced that registration for a one-time universal NT$10,000 cash handout to help people in Taiwan survive US tariffs and inflation would start on Nov. 5, with payouts available as early as Nov. 12. Who is eligible for the handout? Registered Taiwanese nationals are eligible, including those born in Taiwan before April 30 next year with a birth certificate. Non-registered nationals with residence permits, foreign permanent residents and foreign spouses of Taiwanese citizens with residence permits also qualify for the handouts. For people who meet the eligibility requirements, but passed away between yesterday and April 30 next year, surviving family members
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials
‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to