they still use it in the south
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Is brother @cranky_laowai’s ridiculously comprehensive and unimpeachable website still aoiund?
He gives a superb rundown of the entire complex and frequently asinine history of Romanization in Taiwan. 
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Great… Now I’m a warmonger.
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I’m still working on the TUR (Taiwan Unified Romanization) by the way. If you call procrastinating working that is.
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No. Counties traditionally with green governments use Tongyong. It’s possible that the Lin Government in Taichung approved Tongyong names for the stations when in power. Kaohsiung and Tainan still widely use it.
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That’s what I think happened and that’s why it makes me angry. All of the street signs, all of the Google map names, all other tourist info, etc. are all written in Hanyu Pinyin. They shouldn’t be using romanization to make some sort of political statement that a grand total of zero Taiwanese actually care about and 99% of tourists don’t understand. Just keep things consistent for the foreigners’ sake.
Romanization is for foreigners. I can count on one hand the number of Taiwanese people I have met in my 18 years here who actually know any type of Chinese romanization. Pick the system that is most convenient for foreigners…and there is zero doubt in my mind that a vast majority of foreigners either (a) don’t know anything about romanization or (b) are learning or already know Hanyu Pinyin.
Only people who have been here for a long, long time and likely already can read Chinese characters know anything about Wade-Giles or Tongyong.
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I think that’s what goes through the mind of both the blues and greens as well.
The blues are saying, let’s use the one the world is using already. Since China absolutely dominates and Chinese vastly outnumber us, might as well get in line with this one and has become an international standard.
The greens are saying, let’s use the one that far more represents how these characters are spoken because NOBODY in the west pronounces a Q like a CH.
In China, Pinyin isn’t meant for foreigners. They use Pinyin to learn characters in school.
This clearly isn’t English. This is assistive reading.
I’ve seen 4 different romanisations used for the town I used to live. Would be very confusing for anyone trying to find it
The simplest way to solve this whole problem is for everybody to just learn Chinese.
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Which is more likely???
At this point, it’s hard to call. Anyway, learning Chinese totally solved the pinyin problem for me. 
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Nobody used to pronounce a q like a ch, but as Hanyu Pinyin has become more commonly seen in the West (history books will refer to the Qin Dynasty or the city of Qingdao), I’m pretty sure that a good portion of people without any sort of Hanyu Pinyin training will still tend to pronounce Qin something close to “Cheen.” I’m not sure. I would actually like to see some tests on that. Maybe I’ll ask my brothers and sisters… Actually I’ll do that right now!
To be clear, I don’t think Tongyong is perfect, but I think it’s better then HanYu Pinyin.
Here are some examples.
Wenxin/Wunsin
Xinyi/Sinyi
Zhongzheng/JhongJheng
Xinzhuang/Sinjhuang
Danshui/Danshuei
Shiding/Shihding
Pingxi/Pingsi
Fengshan/Fongshan
Nanzi/Nanzih
Liugui/Liouguei
Most news anchors can’t even say Xi Jinping, despite the fact that Xi, has the SAME pronunciation as ‘She’.
It depends what you mean by “better.”
If the purpose is solely to make it easier to pronounce Chinese words “naturally” without any foreknowledge of the romanization’s pronunciation rules, then in SOME cases Tongyong is better. You picked on the “Q” sound earlier, but Tongyong doesn’t have a reasonable way of dealing with that either. 氣 is qi in hanyu pinyin and ci in tongyong. Neither are even close to being able to naturally prompt a near-correct pronunciation.
But the ability to prompt natural pronunciation is only one function of a romanization system and it’s the ONLY one that Tongyong is arguably superior at. Standardized and widespread usage would definitely go to Hanyu Pinyin. Communication on an international level would clearly go to Hanyu Pinyin. Communication for any Chinese language learner would clearly go to Hanyu Pinyin. And so on…
EDIT:
And actually, looking at the side-by-side examples that you gave, I would wager that only the “Zh” words switching to “Jh” would get significantly more accurate pronunciation by a non-Chinese speaker. I asked some of my brothers and sisters over messenger a few minutes ago and they said the would pronounce “Wenxin” like “Win-zin” and “Wunsin” like “One-sin.” Is that really any better?
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The sequel to One Piece? 
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Here we go again. Romanization shouldn’t be just for foreigners. That attitude is exactly what got us in the current predicament to begin with. As long as it is only for foreigners, and treated as “not actual writing”, the locals could care less about which system is being used.
Like I’ve said in the previous Pinyin Wars, the only way for this to change is for the locals to actually care about romanization, and the only way to do that is for it to be useful to the locals just as well as foreigners.
In order for Taiwan to become a multicultural society it so often purport itself to be, shouldn’t people at least be able to read each other’s names correctly? The only way to achieve at least that much social inclusion, a useful romanization is a must.
At that point it isn’t about should we use the same system as the PRC, it’s about how can we design a Romanization system that benefits all Taiwanese residence, foreign or otherwise.
Sure, as long as it’s simplified.
I actually find simplified a lot harder to read. It really hurts my eyes.
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Yeah, if that list is the best examples in favor of Tongyong, things don’t look to good for it.