They held another meeting about this issue and came to the same conclusion. APRC holders and work&religious related ARC holders are NOT included.
There is no logic about this outcome, but well, what to expect from a country which actually doesn’t really welcome it’s foreign community.
I agree what another poster wrote here before.
This ruling is purely against those cheap labor and household-helpers. They have no real work-rights, brokers keep a portion of their income which is so low they can’t even pay taxes. Yet they might take money money out from the NHI scheme.
So-called white collar workers with A§RC are just collerteral damage indeed.
They included married foreigners to make the tw spouses (with voting rights) more happy.
I am sure any lawyer would kill that decision in a potential court trial, but well, the group affected here in Taichung is just too small.
If such a decision Taipei or New Taipei would have done, I am sure the outcry would be much more.
Based on recent news from Taichung, it seems such residents are just eligible to have their families mowed down by the muderous incompetence of the drivers of those buses.
About the crappy treatment of foreigners by Taichung city, it seems there wasn’t enough foreign pushback like there was with the Ubike so the government didn’t feel any pressure to change the policy.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen, who expanded the free bus scheme to 10km free max 10 nt charge over that also was the same administration that cut out foreigners from the free bus scheme. Seeing as she’s been reelected I don’t think they will bother changing it.
How does the free bus scheme work there? Do people need to actually register, or does it just work automatically when someone scans their EasyCard or equivalent?
I’m just curious what would happen if a foreign resident of Taichung used a card acquired by a Taiwanese friend to “take back” their right to free travel like everyone else.
Also, if it’s done via the card being swiped, it would seem to suggest someone’s citizen/foreigner status is encoded in there? (Incidentally, this would also imply that this is one of the rare occasions that a Taiwanese government body/organization has considered the fact that foreigners live here.) AFAIK, people aren’t required to register their EasyCard either, are they?
You need to take your ID card to one of district offices to register your EasyCard.
It’s a simple check to make your card included in the free scheme, nothing special about the card. Its number is registered into a system like youbike for example.
For students they need to provide a Certificate of Enrollment. Even if you are a foreign student and try to use your ARC, where it literally says you are able to be in Taiwan because you are a student, you are still required to present a certificate of enrollment.
Same thing for the HSR for student discount tickets actually ever since they changed the policy and said Student ID cards were no longer accepted, so you have to print out the certificate every semester or have your student id stamped every semester to get the student discount tickets for HSR.
You can do this but the government probably figured people might do this so they only allow one registered easycard per person. So unless your local friend wont be taking the bus ever.
One card per person. I think if you lose or change your card you can have the previous card deleted from the system and replaced with the new one, again similar to youbike.
It really makes it all the more annoying when this is a deliberate thing done by the government, rather than an accidental oversight or laziness.
I assume mostly directed at migrant workers too (just from the numbers). Imagine the horror of a Southeast Asian person working here at or below minimum wage stealing a free bus ride from the poor Taiwanese taxpayer.
I won’t really go into it…but at least some of the people I’ve interacted with, foreigners are literally not worth a thought and are forgotten in schemes like this. When the issue has been brought up to people in higher positions it was mostly met with a “oh really? I didn’t know that” and the issue gets thrown to the wayside never to be looked at again, and I truly believes it’s a deliberate choice in many situations though.
This particular issue I tried to get it brought up to higher level folks through a connection or two, but it seems like nothing ever happened since that was about half a year ago now.
It makes Taichung look like a meanspirited parochial backwater. Which I suppose it has progressively become since the completion of the HSR system and the exit of a lot of the foreign professional community.
I am especially irritated by the clause to include foreign residents married to Taiwanese while excluding other foreign residents. What on earth is that about, as if that point is relevant to riding a bus.
