People retire, and also 10 years is pretty optimistic
The current budget already accounts for people retiring, but yeah 10 years is very optimistic.
Very true. If those two things existed, all the traffic problems would already be solved and we wouldnāt be taking about building roundabouts in the first place.
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Fine, you want to make it 25 years? its still an extra 80 million USD a year to the budget. roughly enough to cover the salaries of 2,500 uniformed officers (assuming a 50K monthly salary). 2,500 police officers is a large enough number to be significant.
Conversely, invest in technology (license plate readers, e-toll systems, intelligent traffic management) to increase traffic efficiency and safety. Or invest in mass transit? to take cars of the road and reduce congestion and accidents.
There are many good things that can be done with that money, and it can be spent over many years. Your point of āone time windfallā doesnt hold water.
No, I meant the money wonāt last very long. Five years is more realistic, especially if you take into consideration other government departments will also want a piece of the pie.
Your suggestion of installing more red light cameras/license plate readers is taking our discussion back to square one. See recap below:
Seriously? One day? I guess the article didnāt make that clear, but I expected it would be at least a week.
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Thereās a new one on my road. It just shows how pointless they are because the road sounds like a racetrack 24/7.
Like who installed that camera then afterwards was satisfied of the good job they did? Its a farce out here it is.
Are you sure about that? The news article said it was ālaunchingā on Monday, not ābeing heldā on Monday.
A nationwide traffic enforcement campaign to raise motoristsā awareness of pedestriansā right of way is to be launched Monday.
Iād like to launch my own traffic enforcement campaign by finding an intersection where there is police, and then crossing the street non-stop.
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well I had multiple cyclists yield to me on the sidewalk today. There havenāt been any cars parked on the usual red lines. I feel like Iāve entered Parallel Universe Taiwan. But the recklessly parked scooters prevailā¦
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Labor day, maybe all those drivers that would usually be illegally parking are out on vacation.
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Police have already pulled over a few people for not yielding to pedestrians in Taipei. The one they show in the video is pretty bad, driver weaves in between a few pedestrians. The news lists out the 14 intersections in Taipei city that will have increased enforcement.
Tesla driver in Taoyuan also got hit with 3 fines, also didnāt yield for pedestrian. Also a vehicle is parked right on the crosswalk at Hsinchu HSR station. Video shows another car also illegally parked on the crosswalk there too.
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I am not a historian of urban planning, but I strongly suspect the case of Japanāa very different place!ārelied more on British models, especially in the push to modernize after the Meiji Restoration. Note for example the fact that they drive on the left, the trains are on the left track, etc. In Taiwan the only holdover from that era (1895-1945) is Taiwan Rail.
Regarding roundabouts: just about every town of note in Taiwan has them, from Hsinchu in the west to Yuli in the east. 
Guy
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Itās the same whether the roundabout has 2, 3, 4 or more lanes. Iāve driven all over Europe with roundabouts of all shapes and sizes, smooth, quick and safe. Some roundabouts will have special designs to deal with higher debit roads, like having a small tunnel underneath for straight ahead traffic, for example. In the end itās all down to driver education, good design and clear signage. Also, letās not confuse modern roundabouts with the old (and dangerous) traffic circles still found at some places. No need for Taiwan to imitate bad examples from the US when there are better proven concepts available.
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A lot of countries go with the way US approaches traffic due to their enormous soft power. But the problem is American road design is for very low population density, European model is better for higher density, but what Asia needs to do is work out their own design that works for their environment and not copy some other country.
Plus itās useless to talk about European design when they donāt even do their due diligence with road design here. Like nobody here yields, why is that, and enforcement effort seems to make no difference, instead requiring an accident for them to finally learn their lesson. Thereās got to be a better way than this.
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Recently I drove in New Zealand for a week. Was not driving in big cities like Auckland which still uses many traffic lights. But in other smaller towns I encountered very few traffic lightsā¦almost every large intersection was a roundabout. Worked very well. However, I really, really do not believe this is workable in Taiwan. Most cars in Taiwan would not stop before entering a roundabout. Yielding is the key point when no traffic light to stop certain cars to make way for other carsā¦
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The concept of āyieldingā here in Taiwan does not seem to be . . . very well understood.
OK was that polite enough?
Guy
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You should also check out this thread. Iām not saying roundabouts arenāt better all else being equal, just that Taiwan had very different driving and municipal roadworks culture compared to Europe.
Roundabouts here would be (well, are) a mess. And itās hard enough for pedestrians to cross the street as it isā¦
I feel the real problem in Taiwan is lack of regulation and driver education. For some reason they just canāt seem to do it.
That reason is the real problem
Well for the first day of all this ābig enforcementā I had it worse than usual in Taichung.
Multiple delivery trucks illegally parking and double parking in and around my bus stop forcing me to walk into the middle of a main road with quite a bit of traffic (I was actually pretty scaredā¦) to even see if the damn bus is coming up on my stop. Police stations still surrounded by tons of illegally parked scooters on sidewalks next to multiple signs saying parking is illegal and even saw a police car illegally parked on the crosswalk while the officers stood by the roadside to āmonitorā traffic.
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Why? Are Taiwanese happy with the shitty traffic situation? Or are they more scared of enforcement because majority of them all violate traffic rules?
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