I’m sure it helps traffic considerably and is comfortable for people who need to ride scooters a considerable distance. I hate standing like a sardine personally.
Has the government released any economic studies? It would be interesting to see some real numbers.
Wookie, I don’t have any studies on tap but today the MRT system is such an integral part of the urban fabric of Taipei that it is hard to separate the success of the city over the last 20-30 years from the MRT system. They are that inextricably linked. Anyone who lives in Taipei, even if they have somehow never set foot on the MRT, has benefited tremendously from the positive externalities of the system such as reduced traffic, cleaner air, and increased investment in the built environment near stations.
When the system was first proposed back in the 70s and 80s, it was highly controversial. A lot of people thought it wasn’t needed, was too expensive, etc. But if you ask any Taipei person today, they are likely to report very high satisfaction with the MRT system and say that they couldn’t imagine life in Taipei without it. Sure, there is the occasional rich person who drives everywhere or the occasional poor person who still lives outside the orbit of the system and uses their scooter for everything, but by and large, most corners of Taipei have now been transformed by the MRT.
We spend a lot of time complaining on this site about how Taiwan is chabuduo, everything’s half-assed, architecture is a mess, etc etc. But let me ask you this. What other city in the world outside of Japan has put extensive research and design thinking into the layout and font of station signage, into passenger flow control, into the sound environment inside stations - a good example being the jingles that play when trains arrive? Taipei MRT has done all that. The system design of every facet of the MRT is really incredible and Taiwan deserves a ton of credit for it.
This is the tragedy of transit investment: when you want to build it, there are plenty of doubters and complainers who say it’s not necessary, it’s too expensive, and then because of those people you sometimes end up with a compromised system that doesn’t work as well as it could. You actually see this in Taipei with the Brown line, which in retrospect should have been a high capacity line but was built as a medium capacity line because it was the first to be built and people were lukewarm about the idea of mass transit. Today, it’s overcrowded, because of opposition and short-sightedness way back in the 80s.
Once transit is built, people tend to love it, but it takes a massive outlay of political capital and leadership to push projects through. All I can say is, thank god the MRT got built mostly in the correct way. I really have no patience for doubters and complainers when it comes to a public good like mass transit.
Taipei MRT is one of the leading mass transit systems in the world on farebox recovery ratio and customer satisfaction. It really is hard to overstate just how wonderful a system it is and Taipei residents should be rightly proud of it.
The investments coming over the next few years - the Wanda line, the Circle Line Phase 1 which is about to open, and Circle Line Phase 2 which is slated to start construction next year, are going to take it to the next level. Especially in this age of climate change, there is nothing more sensible than investing in electric transport, and mass transit is the lowest carbon electric transport of all.
Just imagine life without it. I know how it was back then, without an MRT.
I completely agree.
I was just looking for concrete figures.
I also wonder where new lines really need to be built.
I’d like to see more high speed rails built nationwide with more links to more cities, too.
Wasn’t there talk of adding more carriages to the trains to accommodate more passengers? You can see all the stations on the brown line still have available room on the platform to allow more doors to open for potential carriages, both on the front and back of the train. I wonder what happened to that plan.
If you look at many American cities without a working mass transit, traffic is terrible. But the auto industry has a strangle hold there and people also don’t like public transport.
No, they already have more carriages than the same system in France. The problem with the brown line was due to the fact that they wanted more carriages than original.
Both right, yes the current Br line runs with double the carriages that the system was originally set up to use by the French - this lead to issues in the front set forgetting to release the brakes on the 2nd set and driving off and causing fires. Yes the Br line stations were all designed so that the current 2 set system can be expanded to a 6 set one to give a very easy 50% capacity rise.
While the Br line is the poor cousin of the MRT lines it does make some sense because it was cheaper to implement than a heavy metro and they built it with the expansion factor. Where it does fall down I think is the original stations do not have enough entrances whereas the new station all seem to have more.
They’re rectifying that where they can. For example, there will be a new entrance at Technology Building station on the west side of Fuxing Rd when that new high rise is completed.
I’m going to XINZHUANG!
New Taipei Industrial Park is where it’s at man…
That’s where the cool kids go.
Is that a theme park?
Yes. The theme is GET TO WORK!
I can’t wait!
Haha haha
Eh line is open from 10 am to 4 pm, so there ain’t no coming or going to work…yet.
Anyways I’ll wait and see if by noon the line gets shorter or if it is going to be IKEA all over again.
Hey, today might be a good day for IKEA. Can pets get in?
Am I mistaken or was it just the Neihu extension of the Brown Line which has the platforms long enough for six cars? I think the original pre-2010 brown line (e.g. the section down south) only has 4 car platforms? If I’m right then if they decide to take advantage of the future proofed 6 car platforms up north, they’d have to extend the platforms down south. Some day, they will probably do this.
Oh now that’s cool. Currently that uBike stand is tantalizingly close but actually so tricky to get to especially from the southbound platform.
Anyone else out there for opening day on the Circle Line? Post pics!
I’m stuck in Hong Kong where the Central Sha Tin Link has just been delayed by 2 years due to corrupt/shoddy concrete work. But the MTR got to blame it on the protesters!
