The demolition of the Heping-Xinsheng Bridge is to start today and continue until Saturday next week, after it was decided that the bridge does not have cultural heritage value, the Taipei City Government said.
Protesters gathered at the scene after the government announced the decision this morning.
Dozens of police were deployed as the New Construction Office of the Taipei Public Works Department blocked the road and entrances to the bridge.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Art critic Wu Mu-ching (吳牧青), who has lived nearby for 40 years, tried to enter the blocked area and was brought away by the police.
The bridge is an important landmark that symbolizes the city’s collective memory in the 1980s and is seen in numerous films and television shows, Wu said.
The authorities blamed the bridge for a poorly designed traffic route, he added.
He called the government’s action a “raid,” which he described as tantamount to the Chinese Communist Party’s way of doing things.
Protest group Safeguard Heping-Xinsheng Bridge filed an application to review its cultural heritage value in a bid to prevent the bridge from immediate demolition.
Six members of the Cultural Heritage Review Committee were gathered to review the cultural heritage value of the bridge and a site visit was conducted on Wednesday last week after receiving the application on Nov. 5, the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs said in a news release.
Six committee members were briefed by the applicants, members of the public and relevant authorities on the reason for application, the current state of the building, the structure of the bridge, the demolition plan and complementary measures to determine whether the bridge is of potential cultural heritage value as a monument, historic building, commemorative building, historic site or cultural landscape, it said.
After considering opinions from all sides and having conducted a site visit, the committee members unanimously agreed that the bridge is below the standard to be designated as cultural heritage under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法), it said.
Traffic control is to be in place from 11pm to 6am every day when the demolition is underway, the New Construction Office said in a news release.
Only buses are to be allowed through, while other vehicles are to be directed to use Wenzhou Street and Jianguo S Road during the traffic control period, the government said.
The 42-year-old overpass serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads.
Located about 500m from National Taiwan Normal University at the southwest corner of Daan Forest Park, the overpass allowed people to walk over the busy multiple-lane intersection for more than four decades.
Despite many residents’ fondness for the functional — if not classically attractive — pedestrian footbridge, the city government last month announced its plan to demolish it.
Additional reporting by CNA
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