Remove the quickest, most convenient transportation option in this island?
That may work in Taipei or Xinbei, but elsewhere…no.
In China the government just made a law and took any motor scooter away. I guess it’s one benefit to a government like that. If they want something done they just do it.
I think you have missed the point. Recycling blah blah … will hardly have any effect on the environment. The most positive move by far is to reduce the number of private vehicles. You do this by making private vehicles less convenient and more expensive.
Right now, petroleum is heavily heavily subsidized. Riding a scooter is too cheap and too convenient. Nobody has an incentive to take public transport, walk or ride a bike. If you take away the subsidies and increase the cost of parking, while at the same time building more bike lanes and increasing public transport coverage, people will naturally gravitate away from scooters and we can live in a nice, clean country where the air doesn’t kill us.
Of course Taipei first.
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Xinbeisshi public transport isn’t bad.
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Again, in Taipei or Xinbei, fine. Do what you want. There is the options for people.
In the sticks, forget it. There is no PT to speak of in Hsinchu County or City. The bus servic is horrendous. And that’s it. The scooter is the most convenient mode of transportation. Walking and cycling is fine, if you have the MRT to fall back on, and Taipei has a world class system.
I have no problem of incentivizing making scooters more efficient and cleaner. But is punishing the rider really the way to go?
Charging for parking on pavements isn’t punishing the rider is it?
You’ve been living here too long!
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You mean like they do with cars? Stick a ticket somewhere on the machine? I have no problem with that. But the politician who pushes that will almost guarantee themselves out of a job.
Why should I, or anyone else be punished for inadequate parking solutions?
They already charge for street parking of scooters in Taipei. You get a ticket and pay at the convenience store or automatically from your bank account.
I don’t understand the punishment thing. The idea is to make scooter riding less attractive and more expensive. Scooters are an absolute blight and they look awful.
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I’ll say it till I die (as a scooter rider, that may come soon!) it is the most convenient way to get around in town. What takes an hour in a car, takes 30 minutes on 2 wheels.
I thought this as well. However, sometimes when the family and I go out to dinner we take scooter and car. It’s really 50/50 in terms of who arrives at the destination first.
That depends on how fast both vehicles are moving and where you’re going. Like, if you were to go from Living Mall over to Guang Hua Digital Plaza. I almost guarantee car will be faster because you can take the Civic Blvd high rise and the scooter cannot!
I also agree what you’re saying @JB_IN_TW , I’m a scooter commuter myself, I hate it, but it really is the most convenient way to get around the city. The day Mayor Ko decides he’s going to charge me for street parking and ticket me for illegal parking is the day that decide to take mass transport.
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Electric scooters , less parking on pavements and better driver education and traffic enforcement.
Soon enough the scooter problem wouldn’t be a scooter problem anymore would it.
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Not if you live out of town.
By car I can get from Xindian to Xinyi in about 15 to 20 mins. I have a choice of at least three expressways or fast roads.
By scooter would be much longer and a fairly horrible ride
I can get to most places in Greater Taipei within 30 mins by car. Taiwan has great infrastructure for car drivers. Almost too good as you see how much they spent on it and not on other stuff. Its not even expensive to park cars at average 30 or 40 ntd per hour.
For Taipei MRT is the best way to get around for medium distance and really looking forward to the circular line coming into operation. One reason I like the MRT is I can start at one spot and leave at another spot. I don’t have to go back to get my car and then usually go home because I don’t want to look for parking again.
Outside of Taipei generally cars win by a country mile except for city centers and old town centers. Hsinchu is the WORST place ever as it has no decent public transport and is also a horrific place to find car parking on weekends and to drive at rush hour.
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But that’s because there isn’t enough public transport/bike lanes or sidewalks.
More bike lanes, more buses, less scooter parking and it’s not the most convenient way to get around town.
Again you are missing the point . The original problem is that Taiwan is heavily polluted. The reason it’s polluted for the most part is the favouring of convenience of cleanliness and lazy politicians who choose inactivity and cheap votes over real social change. Everything in life is a trade off, you trade off little bit of convenience for a nicer place to live.
If you think things can’t change and will never change, then your presence in this thread is bemusing. Charging for parking or favouring cycling over private motor vehicle use isn’t some crazy pinko commie plan, nearly every major metropolis in the world is doing it. London just invested two billion pounds in cycling infrastructure.
Take Singapore as in example. Similar size, population density and roughly climate as Taipei. To own a private motor vehicle there is expensive. If you want to do it, you must pay more. It’s not a matter of punishing scooter riders, rather at the moment with subsidised petroleum and free parking, they are being rewarded for their choices
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Also im starting to think that Taiwan is really into something with Gogoro. It’s a full system that could be very attractive to many cities who are trying to ween the populace off private motor vehicles in the city. By giving free parking for electric vehicles and charging higher parking fees for motorized vehicles, Taiwan could really show off the potential of Gogoro
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its really not though. riding a scooter in the city is 90% waiting at traffic lights. might be quicker than a car but its not convenient. outside of the city where they have no public transport and there are way less people sure. but they should be banned in citys. the shitty ones at least.
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Its just not very pleasant or safe to ride scooters and it’s only convenient to ride scooters because of the parking situation.
When it rains and then the sun is splitting the stones (about half the time in Taipei for instance ) you could hardly think of a worse vehicle to be on.
You are sucking in all that concentrated noxious pollution from the tailpipe of other scooters at traffic lights.
I `m always perplexed that scooter riders don’t buy them with a roof.
Which just goes to show the herd mentality at work to be honest and cheapness of vendors and customers.
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@Brianjones, I have no problem with electric scooters. I do have a problem with less parking places. More education will not work, but increased enforcement of traffic regs will be welcomed. The punishment has to be meaningful, and has to be followed up on. I have no problem with excising a 100% tax on all fossil fuel consuming vehicles. 50% of hybrids (cars win that round) and 0% on full electric.
And if you think Hsinchu is bad, try Zhongli. That traffic is a nightmare on anyday!
@OrangeOrganics the pollution is not all the fault of the scooter. Look at the landscape. Taiwan, at least west side, suffers from the same geologic issues that Los Angeles and Denver deal with. Mountains. They way the air gets trapped, with all that pollution from cars, scooters, factories, buses, etc has no where to go. Getting spillover from Chinese Beijing does not help, either. Also, I am all for alternative modes of transportation, but outside of Taipei its non-existent. Taichung and Kaohsiung have half hearted systems, but scooters still rule the roost, so to speak. Amsterdam like streetcars might work in places like Hsinchu and other -isolated mini-metros. I am all for eliminating the absolutely larger than necessary SUV and full-size benz and beamers.
@ranlee, that is Taipei. All bets are off. Im in the sticks.
@BHL4life I tend to equate convenience and speed. If I am running to Carrefour, I just hop and go. Park out front (white lines) in and out. I agree though, that the old white smoke machines need to be removed from service.
The problem would be then to chose who to have a shower with… wife, xiaoshan 1, xiaoshan 2, secretary, etc…
A lot of the problem with pollution comes from scooters. There are way too many private vehicles in Taipei. Thats not a controversial topic, academics and competent politicians are in agreement. Taipei really doesnt need so many private vehicles in the city centre, and thats it. As you said, the city is a natural basin which exasperates the situation even more. Taipei and New Taipei can become a modern, clean and efficient city and the rest of Taiwan will hopefully follow suit. Just because things are one way, doesnt mean they will stay that way.
Congestion charges, reducing parking, more bike lanes, more showers in offices etc. This stuff works. Nearly every major city was redeveloped for the motor car and now we are trying to reverse that mistake. Good study here on implementing congestion charges in Taipei. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146517304957
When I lived in Hsihchu, felt it was chicken and egg. There is not enough public transport so everyone rides scooters and there isnt any public transport because of lack of demand due to everyone riding scooters. What you are left with is horrible. The Science Park is actual mayhem. Its really disgraceful and depressing to see that place in the morning and you dont really have any choice but to join them.
The point anyway, is that there is a problem and something should be done to remedy it.
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- save energy -> agree, and I try
- no AC -> I have tried and I try, but sometimes I can’t help it at home, and I overuse it. Probably my AC is too small and need to run it longer time than if it were bigger
- sleep early -> have done it, but going back to bad sleeping habits… I guess it works unless you turn on computers and stuff as you wake up
- cold showers -> when it gets hot I turn off the water heater. Haven’t turned it on yet this year
- I try to commute by bicycle, but when you are late, you can’t…
- apples -> in general if you buy local, less transportation is involved, so it’s better for everything. Problem is… TW food is so expensive. They don’t have space for producing it, so they charge too much for anything… especially if locally produced
- No meat. I buy the “less meat”, no meat sounds wrong to me. But in general, EAT LESS, and probably less meat.
- plastic bags -> I avoid them as much as I can, but sometimes I still get them… so I give them a second life. Never throw them without having used them for garbage at home
- disposable coffee cups -> just make it at home. I don’t drink much coffee now, but I used to fill crystal bottles with my home made latte and bring them to work.
- No more cigarettes -> tobacco is shit, bad for you, bad for the rest of the people, and fuckin’ annoying in general
- incense -> I used to burn sticks in my room. I stopped smoking joints and reading new age bullshit and suddenly I didn’t need them anymore
- separate garbage -> I more or less do it. We have separated containers in my building, that helps
- plastic things -> I try to avoid them. In general I try to avoid buying stuff, but sometimes…
I would add:
- if it’s hot at home, go for a walk, spend your evening out so that you need less AC/electricity at home
- don’t turn on lights at home that you don’t really need. That might annoy your couple (mine was annoyed by that), but it saves energy
- buy second hand. I’m surprised this one is not in the list. We buy too many things, most of them pretty unnecessary. To manufacture a product requires materials, electricity, water… etc… and when you dump something, that becomes garbage. We have problems with managing garbage…
- don’t give up, and spread the word: I’ve been told many times that what I do for saving energy or not polluting doesn’t have any impact because it’s only me and the rest of the people don’t do that. Well, that’s exactly why we have the problems we have: don’t make excuses, and explain this to the people who make these excuses.
- if you have a group travel / visit, try to use a fewer cars as possible; use all the seats, instead of having each one / couple / family their own car
- don’t do gyms. Exercise like a man (or like a woman
), go out and swim, run, hike, climb, ride… lift weights at home if you want, but don’t pay money for things you don’t really need - bring your own water / tea / juice with you, instead of making 7/11 stops all the time (I need to work on this… I used to bring tea and water with me when walking / hiking / riding, but I’m not doing it that often nowadays)