I am extremely concerned about the recent reports on government’s plan to build cable car systems at 4 high mountains. The summary translation is attached as follows and hopefully this article will draw the attention of the foreign community in Taiwan.
Government plans to build cable cars on Jade Mountain and 3 others stirs concerns
Lobbyists against the plan will go on streets on 30 May
In order to implement government
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! NO!
Quite apart from the eyesore aspect, it’ll destroy totally the environment up there. Unless of course it’s managed properly – BWAHAHAHAHA! What an idea!
I hope they at least make like it is in the Cairngorms, where you can cartainly take a funicular railway up to the near the top, but you’re confined to a series of walkways once there unless its winter and you’re up there to ski. In summer, if you want to hike there you’re quite welcome – but you have to hike up from the bottom, which puts off all the high-heel-wearing mouthbreathers, their fat beer-bellied husbands and their sullen squalling brats.
But nooooo – it will be a total, total fucking disaster for those areas, although no doubt a handful of people will get rich off it for a few years, and maybe a few aborigines will even be tossed a few consolatory crumbs, so that’ll make everything worthwhile. Bastards.
Nooooooo!!!
There’s already too many garbage-tossing motherfuckers up in those places as it as, and they want to open up to more, even lazier motherfuckers… 
This has to be stopped!
The organizer of the march: anticablecar@yahoo.com.tw
The relevant news: outdoor.com.tw/modules/news/ … storyid=18
home.kimo.com.tw/anticablecar/
Sorry, all these sites are in Chinese.
My friend, a civil servant, told me that the feasibility study did not take into account of water, environment loadings, etc. The report itself is not well-rounded. It seems to me another classic example of producing a report that meets the government demands.
I’ll stand in front of the bulldozer if I have to… :bluemad:
Don’t they understand that the very tourists they are trying to attract would want to CLIMB the damn mountain, not ride in a cable car. This Island won’t be a mainstream travel destination ever. It could however be an excellent destination for hiking, camping, mountain climbing motorcycle touring and the like, with a healthy dose of Chinese culture tossed in…Young people looking for something different from the norm Asian activities. They’ll come if it’s properly promoted.
But they want to destroy it before they even get here?..Short-sighted fucks!
Has anyone checked the chinese on these sites to see if what Penguin is suggesting is really happening or seriously being planned as opposed to just being looked at? Considering the number of hikers to Yushan is limited to minimize environmental impact I can’t see a cable car suddenly going in there and bringing thousands more people a day.
I know they plan to build cable cars in Yamingshan, Huelian, Sun Moon Lake, but have never heard of any plans to build them in the high mountains. Is it even feasible? I mean do other countries have cable cars at such high altitudes?
It won’t be cheap to build these things. The one in Hualien needs 200,000 people a year to ride to break even in 10 years. It will be much more expensive to build and operate in the high mountains. Do you think they can get that number in Wuling Farm, or Hehuanshan? What about all the fog in these areas?
If someone wants to call Yushan National Park Headquarters (I’m in Canada now) we could probably get the scoop. 049-277 3121
I guess it’s possible. They built one in Venezuela. To be honest, it looks like an amazing ride.
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here and ask just what is so horrible about cable cars going up into the high mountains. They have them in France:
The world’s highest cable car, based in Chamonix, soars 12,000 ft up the Aiguille du Midi, providing positively staggering views of 15,700-ft Mont Blanc, Europe’s loftiest peak.
They have them in south america, as I wrote above. I’m sure they have them elsewhere, so, other than our personal prejudices, what concrete evidence do we have that they are bad for the environment.
Don’t flame me as I’m asking a legitimate question.
Basic data for the 4 routes, according to the news article I read
Jade Mt. / Xue Mt. / Hehuan Mt. / Nanhuda Mt.
Start Tatajia / Wulin Farm / Ski training centre / Siyuanakou
End Jade Mt. / North Peak Ganmulin Mt. / Hehuan Mt. East Peak / Nanhuda Mt. North Peak
Number of stations 4(2) / 3(1) / 0 / 5(2)
Horizontal length 7215 m / 5815 m / 665 m / 9460 m
Number of poles 31 / 26 / 4 / 53
Height of poles 15-50 m / 10-45 m / 15-40 m / 10-40 m
Max. span between poles 500 m / 350 m / 250 m / 365 m
Estimate on construction cost 827.69 million / 690.09 million / 150.51 million / 102.611 million
Ridership forecast 906K/year - 557K/year - 335K/year - 465K/year
Operation revenue forecast 226.42 million / 122.63 million / 23.47 million / 144.00 million
At the CEPD website, you can find 3 studies regarding cable cars, all released on 16 April 2003. The first is called ‘An Overseas Case study of cableway installation, operation and management in mountain areas’, the second ‘a plan in advance includes the cable cars setting and B.O.T at Gu-Guan’ and the third one (CEPD study summary) is the concern - evaluation of potential locations to built a mountain cable car system and development /operation.
The problem is whether Taiwan’s high mountains are able to accomodate all the tourists. Take the Jade Mountain for example. To reach the ridership of 906,000 per year, on average you need about 620 persons per hour (assuming 8 hours a day * 180 days [no main-stream Taiwanese would go in winter or rainy weather]). How to deal with that number of people? A report mentioned that the forecast peak load in the study for the Jade Mt. is 880 persons per hour. Is it a good idea to build a platform up there so that they can easily get up there and stay for 15 minutes (just enough to take phtos and enjoy a couple warming foods (trust me, they will appear) and leave garbage there? What about water and hygiene? What about earthquakes? Do people forget the cross-island highway after 921? Economic development and environment are two difficult topics to discuss, on who has the right and such. But for Jade Mt., most people probably think that it is best to leave it alone.
Yes, I agree, good planning and technologies may overcome all these defects, but at what cost? Can
That little cablecar run on hohuanshan will not do much but spoil the view of the mountain itself. The lodge up to the peak? Anyone and everyone can hike that in 15 minutes.
Tatajia to Jade Mtn peak is stupid as it’s such a gentle slope until the peak spire itself it’s hardly worth calling it a stroll, let alone a hike. The last couple of times I’ve been up there (hike up from Tungpu) there was already a queue to get to the peak, so the idea of 800+ people an hour there is ridiculous unless they are planning on either cutting the top off the mountain or building a huge platform to cap it.
Garbage you say? What about the volume of poop 800+ people an hour are going to leave behind
Cable cars sound like a great idea.
Can’t wait. Beats walking.
Lake Tahoe lets you go up to the top of the mountain on ski lifts during summer. That’s a beautiful place to go. People take the lift to the top, then take the lift back down or hike trails down to the bottom.
The Nanhuda Mt. lift looks economically feasable from penguin’s post. If they are smart, they will go for one at a time, to check if the forecasts are actually correct.
Thanks for the facts Penguin. It seems doubtful these things will go through. There will be too much protesting and the numbers just seem too high. There’s no way you’re going to get that many people to some of these places.
I was reading a bit about cable cars. Seems they tried to build one up the Mattahorn in the 70’s. The protesters main point was that the mountain should be left to nature and climbers. Build a cable car up some obscure mountain not one that is a world class destination. I think Yushan protesters can make a similiar claim.
What do you people think about the cable cars going into Yamingshan, Sun Moon lake, and other low altitude locations?
[quote=“Mucha (Muzha) Man”]Thanks for the facts Penguin. It seems doubtful these things will go through. There will be too much protesting and the numbers just seem too high. There’s no way you’re going to get that many people to some of these places.
I was reading a bit about cable cars. Seems they tried to build one up the Mattahorn in the 70’s. The protesters main point was that the mountain should be left to nature and climbers. Build a cable car up some obscure mountain not one that is a world class destination. I think Yushan protesters can make a similiar claim.
What do you people think about the cable cars going into Yangmingshan, Sun Moon lake, and other low altitude locations?[/quote]
Yangmingshan - not a bad idea. Already overcrowded, a cable car would alleviate traffic but I struggle to think who of the rich folk would let them resume land or run cars over/near their property. (assuming it came from the Tienmu side which would be most logical)
Sun Moon Lake - no thanks, I like the fact that despite the tourists it still feels sleepy.
I can only imagine the Taiwan govt has gone 'ooh ooh ooh - HK has a cable car - we need one", and havent thought this through at all.
Northern Qld has one and I was anti the project at first, but they used helicopters to put the pylons in place and the cable cars stop at the final destination and the only way back is by cable car. Toilet facilities, rubbish etc all looked after… somehow I cant imagine this would happen in Taiwan. Myself and fellow bikers/hikers are noticing more and more people on the trails (a good thing) but also an increasing amount of trash (a bad thing)… there are no education programs in place in Taiwan for anti-littering and the fines are miniscule and rarely enforced. Sort this out and projects such as cable cars start looking ok-ish.
There’s an article on this subject in today’s Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/05/30/2003157585
If anyone hears/learns how to get involved in the anti-cable car union or the taiwan wilderness society pls PM me.
Taiwan will never be the tourist destination like those mentioned above, thus the need for cable cars is mad… imagine it… x000’s of tourists an hour shuttling to and from… the peaks are bad enough as it is…
I too want to play the devil’s advocate for a bit and I think I have a legitimate question – shouldn’t we foreigners let the Taiwanese decide if they want the cable cars on their mountains?
Granted we can have opinions and we can voice them, but rushing off to join protests, sign petitions and whatever seems to me that we are sending yet another message to the Taiwanese that says “you obviously don’t know how to run your country or make your own decisions, and therefore you need to let the intellectually superior Westerners tell you how to do things.”
Ok, flame away :fume:
[quote]Granted we can have opinions and we can voice them, but rushing off to join protests, sign petitions and whatever seems to me that we are sending yet another message to the Taiwanese that says “you obviously don’t know how to run your country or make your own decisions, and therefore you need to let the intellectually superior Westerners tell you how to do things.”
Ok, flame away [/quote]
To me, it says simply: “we don’t agree that running cable cars up into pristine wilderness areas is a good idea and we don’t believe that the environmental impact studies are unbiased and fair.”
If I went to an environmental protest in, say, Yosemite, would you say that as a foreigner I should keep my mouth shut?
If I want to flaunt my superior Western intellect, I’m sure there are other far more effective platforms for me.
Basically, if you were a foreigner protesting in Yosemite…I would say you were attempting to interfere in matters that weren’t your concern. Pretty much like that preacher in the U.S. that travels all over the country with his flock to protest gay rights. Why the hell does he go to states where he doesn’t live to stir up hate? He should keep his butt at home and let the locals decide what they want for their community. But then again…that’s just my opinion. 
there are many of us foreigners who have spent a darn long time on the island, have partners that are Taiwanese etc and call the island home. some of us have a more than passing interest in the long term future of Taiwan. I dont recall making any “I am a Westerner therefore I know better” judgements, I just want to get involved to save Taiwan’s truly beautiful mountains.