Sat, Sep 23, 2023 page3

• Ministry mulls expanding access to priority seats

  • By Chiu Chih-jou, Tsai Ssu-pei and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer
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  The government is not planning to abolish priority seats on public transportation, but is considering expanding access to the seats, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said on Thursday, a day after writer Li Ang (李昂) complained about young people not yielding their seats, sparking a social media furor.

  Writing on Facebook, the 71-year-old novelist said she had asked three young people occupying priority seats on the Taipei MRT if they could yield the seat to her as she was feeling ill, but was refused.

  One, a young man, said he needed the seat because he was not feeling well, while the other two — who looked like female high-school students — simply “rolled their eyes” at her request, Li wrote.

  

  Priority seats are pictured on a Taipei MRT rail car in an undated photograph.

  Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times

  Li said she was rushing at the time to meet a visiting Polish professor at National Chengchi University and was exhausted because she had been busy recording an English-language program and preparing to leave for Paris on Oct. 1 for her book launch.

  Li asked Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) about his thoughts on priority seating on the MRT and said she hoped he would provide clearer guidelines about who has priority access.

  Disputes have risen over the years over priority seats and whether they should be limited to elderly people, people with disabilities, pregnant women or children; expanded to include any one in need; or to simply abolish the system.

  The ministry has no plans to cancel priority seating, as provided for in Article 53 of the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法), Social and Family Affairs Administration Director Chien Hui-chuan (簡慧娟) said.

  While acknowledging that the system has stirred disputes, she said: “Taiwanese consider it a courtesy to yield their seats to those in need even if they are not priority seats.”

  The ministry is working on amending eligibility requirements by adding the phrase “people in genuine need” of the seats.

  The Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee is deliberating proposed amendments, but lawmakers have yet to reach a consensus, Chien said.

  In 2016, a petition to abolish priority seats garnered 8,600 signatures and compelled the ministry to examine the policy, but ultimately rejected the demand after discussing the issue with local governments and civic groups, she said.

  The Taipei MRT said in a release on Thursday said that all its stations have free stickers available that pregnant women, people with disabilities or who are ill can use to secure priority access.

  It is a virtue for passengers to courtesy their seats to others in need, Taipei City Government spokesman Yin Wei (殷瑋) said, adding that the MRT has a slogan that reads: “Maybe you don’t know it, but someone might really need that seat.”

  “People should have mutual respect and understand each other’s needs,” Yin said. “Yielding one’s seat is part of our social etiquette, but it is difficult to enforce such regulations through laws.”

  Previously one passenger who has cancer shared a post on social media, saying that when returning home after a chemotherapy session, she sat down on a priority seat, but was later questioned by an elderly man.

  “Why are you, a young person, sitting on a priority seat?” the man asked.

  The woman said she felt so bad she cried there and then.

  “I did not want to have cancer and I did not feel well after chemotherapy, but do I have to have that written all over my face? You cannot see how I feel, but I do not need to explain what my condition is,” she wrote.

  Additional reporting by Yang Hsin-huei and Jason Pan
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