The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山).
Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage.
For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours.
Photo: Tung Kuan-yi, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, for e-bikes, the rate is NT$20 per 30 minutes for the first two hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes thereafter.
Some riders have ridden the e-bikes more than 70km or used them for mountain climbing, taking up valuable resources meant for commuters, Taipei City Councilor Lee Ming-hsien (李明賢) said.
Lee said that he has seen social media photos and videos of people claiming they had taken the e-bikes as far away as the Wuling (武嶺) mountain pass, raising concerns over whether the bikes are meant for commuting or recreational use, and how long-distance riding could increase wear and tear on the bikes.
Lee added he found that 92.81 and 86.21 percent of YouBike 2.0 and YouBike 2.0E users respectively rent the bikes for less than half an hour on weekdays, while the proportion of longer trips increases over weekends.
This suggests that while the majority of riders on weekdays are using the bikes for commuting, the bikes are more likely to be used for recreational or inter-city trips on weekends, he said.
The five longest rental times all exceed seven hours, often involving rides from Taipei to Hsinchu, he said.
In response, Taipei Department of Transportation Director Hsieh Ming-hung (謝銘鴻) yesterday said that the primary use of the bikes is for commuting, but there is no way to strictly prohibit longer, recreational trips at the weekend.
The YouBike 2.0E is designed to be more comfortable for riders such as older people or those who live in hilly areas, Hsieh said.
Those with long-term riding needs can consider alternative e-bikes, as YouBikes are a public resource that need a high turnover to function properly, Hsieh added.
The department plans to increase the number of YouBike 2.0Es to 4,500 by 2026, he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS