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.
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