A draft amendment that would allow priority seats on public transportation to be given to “people with actual need” instead of only elderly people, women and children passed a legislative committee on Thursday.
The legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee passed the draft amendment proposed by the Executive Yuan to the People With Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法).
The amended version removes the words “elderly, women and children” to allow “people with actual need” to use priority seats, said Chien Hui-chuan (簡慧娟), director of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Social and Family Affairs Administration.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
A similar proposal has also been put forward by Democratic Progressive Party legislators Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴), Lin Yi-chin (林宜瑾) and Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) along with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Yu-mei (張育美).
Article 58, Paragraph 2 of the act stipulates that people with disabilities and one of their necessary companions may also use priority seats.
The committee agreed to remove the word “may” from the paragraph following a suggestion by Wu.
Wu and others also proposed a draft that would require city and county governments to integrate local transportation methods, including taxis, Rehabus — a government-sponsored bus service for transporting people with disabilities — and other accessible transportation services to meet the needs of disabled people.
Local governments have made efforts to provide more convenient transportation services to people with disabilities, but the proposal was made as there is room for improvement, Chien said.
The proposal was passed by the committee.
Article 59 of the act stipulates that people with disabilities may be exempted from admittance fees when entering public scenic areas, entertainment venues, or cultural and educational areas, and would only pay half the price at private ones.
Wu proposed to include sports and exercise facilities to the article.
Chien said that public sports venues already provide discounts to disabled people, but the government has to further deliberate on discounts at private sports and exercise facilities, as it might affect the spending of local governments and businesses.
The Ministry of Education’s Department of Student Affairs and Special Education officer Chen Tien-ting (陳添丁) said his ministry welcomes the proposal, as it encourages people with disabilities to participate in social events.
However, more assessments are needed before amendments can be made to order private venues to offer discounts to disabled people, he said.
Wu agreed to turn the proposal into an attached resolution that encourages private businesses to support people with disabilities to participate in sports.
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
GROUNDED: A KMT lawmaker proposed eliminating drone development programs and freezing funding for counterdrone systems, despite China’s adoption of the technology China has deployed attack drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait in a strategy aimed at overwhelming Taiwan’s air defense systems through saturation attacks, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s latest quarterly report on China said that satellite imagery and open-source intelligence indicate that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had converted retired J-6 fighter jets into J-6W drones, which the PLA has stationed at six air bases near Taiwan, five in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province. The report cited J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the US-based Mitchell Institute, as saying that China has
RSS