Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow- yen (盧秀燕) on Friday announced the city’s plan to offer residents a NT$299 (US$9.75) monthly public transport pass from June as part of a central government project to subsidize public transport.
The pass, which is to cost NT$599 for non-residents, would allow unlimited travel on public transport in Taichung, including city buses, rented bicycles and mass rapid transit (MRT) lines, Lu said.
Also available would be an intercity travel pass, which costs NT$699 for Taichung residents and NT$999 for non-residents, she said.
Photo: Su Meng-chuan, Taipei Times
The intercity travel pass would allow unlimited travel on public transport across Taichung and neighboring Changhua, Nantou and Miaoli counties, covering local city/intercity buses, MRT lines, Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) trains and bicycle-sharing services.
The Taichung City government said it is also working to expand the area covered by intercity travel services by encouraging the participation of other local governments, such as Hsinchu city and county, Yunlin County and Chiayi City.
The central government project to promote public transport, which includes similar fare subsidies in northern and southern Taiwan, is part of the Cabinet’s disbursement of a NT$380 billion tax surplus last year, but still needs to be approved by the legislature.
The Kaohsiung City Government has said it plans to introduce next month a NT$399 monthly public transport pass for unlimited travel on the Kaohsiung MRT, light rail, city buses, ferries and bicycle-sharing service.
Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung County are also looking to introduce a joint NT$999 monthly pass that would allow unlimited travel between the three destinations via TRA trains and intercity buses.
A NT$1,200 monthly public transport pass serving Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Keelung is also likely to be introduced in July, providing unlimited travel on the Taipei and Taoyuan MRT, city buses, bicycles and TRA.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS