Complaints by Taipei residents about defective park playgrounds have risen to more than 1,000 cases in the past two years, Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Hung Wan-jen (洪婉臻) said yesterday.
Among the 446 playgrounds in the city, 1,345 complaints were reported last year, up from 1,079 in 2022 and 946 in 2021, Hung said.
As of May 7, 221 city parks had not been inspected for more than three years and 139 park playgrounds were undergoing improvements, she said, adding that the improvements should be accelerated to ensure children’s safety.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Public Works Department
Repair works take an average of 24 days and could last up to 375 days, which is clearly too long, Hung said.
The repair of inclusive playground equipment, which has been promoted by the city government for many years, could drag on for months due to a shortage of materials, she added.
The Public Works Department’s Parks and Street Lights Office should try to shorten the repair period and optimize its management of frequently repaired items and material inventory, Hung said.
The office yesterday said that 81 city parks were identified as having deficiencies after inspection, which are expected to be fully resolved by the end of next month.
The office has collected and classified the faults and deficiencies found in Taipei’s 446 park playgrounds, and would ask the contractor to prepare the materials for frequently damaged parts in advance for the future construction or renovation of playgrounds, it said.
The contractor would also be required to specify repair timeframes to reduce the waiting period and post a notice with the expected date of completion to inform visitors, the office added.
Hung said she has received multiple requests to construct inclusive parks in neighborhoods.
Residents of Wanhua District (萬華區) and Zhongzheng District (中正) were particularly keen, as they have the least number of parks among the administrative districts in Taipei, she said.
The authorities should implement a construction plan of inclusive facilities at the riverside park crossing both districts, while also looking into the possibility of building inclusive neighborhood parks in smaller districts, Hung said.
The department’s Hydraulic Engineering Office yesterday said that the construction plan of the riverside park has been put into practice, while the roadmaps and designs would be completed by the second half of this year, and the engineering projects would be outsourced next year.
The Parks and Street Lights Office said that playgrounds of all levels in the city have been successively revamped according to local needs every year since 2016.
While Wanhua District and Zhongzheng District collectively have eight out of the 72 inclusive park playgrounds governed by the office, construction or renovation plans would continue to meet local needs while maintaining a regional balance, it said.
Additional reporting by CNA.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS