What do you love/hate about Taipei? City Hall wants to know!

Not a contradiction at all. Pedestrians and traffic don’t mix well, even under more favorable circumstances than here. A street can be a nice place to shop, have a relaxing walk, and eat in the open air; or it can move vehicular traffic. It can’t do both well.

Traffic density will not be materially affected by closing a few pedestrian areas. (Right now they call Hsimending a “pedestrian area” but in fact allow some vehicles to drive through. Typical.) If it ever got to that point (like, after Jesus comes back), then we might be able to move away from car- and motorcycle-centered transportation system altogether. Really, the main effect will be the people living in that area who have cars. But then, they will also be the ones benefitting most from more people coming to shop there. So it all balances out.

Somebody does care after all. I appreciate that:

Dislikes:

  1. Blocked sidewalks

  2. Unprofessional police force

  3. Putting buildings up in very limited remaining green space.

  4. Ambivalence towards/neglect of Chinese culture

  5. Lack of international-quality cultural events

  6. Pathetic dogs abandoned on the streets

  7. Indigestible architecture

Likes:

  1. MRT and public transportation in general

  2. Street life

  3. Bike paths along rivers

  4. Endless variety in eateries and shops

  5. Night markets

Still, four years later and it looks like scrub-land. Who landscaped that place? Someone who has never seen a park before, I bet.

Tell the Mayor to stick his head up his arse, have a look around and then write down everything he sees and he should just about have it nailed.

Walking In Taipei

I’ve just arrived. I’m still alive, but I’ve got this to say,
I met my match more than once on the streets of this Taipei.

I took a stroll from my hotel room to have a look around,
And spent a good part of my time arse up on the ground.

I stumbled on the sidewalk, hopped over a gaping hole,
Dodged a motorbike and then started praying for my soul.

I gathered back my gait, but it was all to no avail,
The rain started pouring down, and this only turned me pale.

Up ahead like mushrooms sprouted a mayhem of umbrellas,
In my ribs, in my eyes, one got up my nose, then a passing bus got us all with what felt like a fire hose.

Soaked, no saturated, I made a turn for home
Then slipped on a grip less Taipei tile, I’m sure I broke a bone.

My briefcase lay only feet away, but it might have been 10 miles,
It’s contents now giving grip to others on those tiles.

I gathered up that meaning less mess and looked for a garbage bin,
But I may as well have been in heaven searching for a sin.

I found myself some shelter and made myself a pledge:

If I can get back to my room, I’ll never hurt another; I’ll treat everyone upon this earth as if they were my brother.

Please God stay with me now in this strange, God-awful town.
I have just one request of you so please don’t let me down.

Summon up the horse men let them ride on through,
Bring your wrath upon this place so that we can start anew.

Just leave.

Pompous twit.

Why is he pompous, everything he wrote is true.

Please tell those city hall folks to make advertisements illegal so those twats will stop cramming crap in our mail slots, no matter where we live.
What a waste of trees… :imp:

Some things I like:

  1. The dike expansion along the Jingmei river in Mucha has opened up a lot of public space. In addition to the miles of bike/walking paths along the upper dike wall there are more smaller parks on the lower level of the dike. On sunny Sunday afternoons the dikes are abuzz with activity. And the snakes are all gone. :smiley:

  2. There is a very pretty little park built beside a small stream just up from Jenda university (heading up toward the community in the hills). The stream was dredged a few years ago and landscaped to make waterfalls and still pools form where once was just mud and weeds and rocks. You can walk the length of the park (a stone path hugs the sides of the stream) in about ten or fifteen minutes. Now you wouldn’t cross town to visit this place, but you would treasure it if it was in your neighborhood. It’s exactly the sort of small, quiet, aethetic space you find everywhere in Tienmu but is so needed elsewhere in the city.

:x :x :x :x

However, who the hell let the city pile the upper walkways of the dike with sandbags? There is about 3 km line of sandbags running along the edge of the walkway starting from the Bao Chyao bridge and heading east. At first, I thought it was a temporary measure to help during typhoon season. But then I noticed that the sandbags only added another 2 feet to the top of the dike wall. Even during Typhoon Nari the dike did not overflow in the areas that have been sandbagged so the extra height created is entirely superflous.

All I can think is that the city had too many sandbags on their hands and decided to dump them off on the dike wall in Mucha, hoping a 3km long wall of bright blue tarpeline (this covers the bags) would escape the neighbors’ notice. Really, it is abominable to build a highly functional public space and then treat it like a storage facility. It’s as if the city looked at Da-an park and said, “Look at all that empty space. What do we have hanging around city hall cluttering up the offices? Oh, that, okay go put in in the park. But give it a cover so people don’t think it’s garbage.”

Really, if you can do anythign to get these sandbags removed you will have won me (and my wife who can actually vote) over to the incumbent mayor.

Thank God City Hall listened to us. Things are much improved. :laughing:

Yes, I notice there is 20% less dog poop on the sidewalks.

Bad phone manners: If someone calls and they are expecting someone else they just keep saying “wai, wai, wai, wai, wai, wai, wai” as if this will make the person they want to speak to appear. No one wants to take or leave messages. This can be annoying. Unless the person has a secretary, it is not anyone else’s responsibility.

Pedestrian behavior. Turning on a dime and running into the people behind them or coming out of building without looking. Walking in groups of four and taking up the whole sidewalk, running into oncoming walkers (individuals) and expecting them to make way or blocking paths of those who may want to pass. Slower walkers should stay to the right on sidewalks as well as escalators. People should never stop in doorways at the bottom, top, middle of stairs, escalators, elevator doors, etc.

Speaking of elevators, they do not come faster if you push both the down and up buttons. There still seems to be confusion about (if you are on the fourth floor you need to push down not up even if the elevator happens to be on the first floor. They all work the same so…

Lack of proactive thinking. So if you call a travel agent and they only know one option for getting somewhere, they will not check on their own. You have to be the one to suggest to them how to “solve the problem.”

burning ghost money. yes it is a tradition, but come on. Time to get into the 21st century. a simple 1 million credit card should do the trick or a centralized location for all such burning. Ghost money should never be burned in buildings. I have seen this repeatedly.

Pedestrians used to get run over in crosswalks now they are getting revenge. When a light turns, no one makes an effort to cross in groups so that cars turning right can get through. This causes major pile up at certain intersections (Linsen and Nanking), Hangzhou and Chung Hsiao and Chung Hsiao and Tun Hwa.

There does that help?

Ditto.

They should build a faux retro kitsch Chinatown here.

Here’s something good: I’ve noticed that people on the MRT are much more courteous about speaking loudly on their cell phones. It used to be that every third person was shouting into them, now far fewer people use them and most of those try to be as quiet as possible. The only problem is that there are still a lot of people that use them on the “no cell phone MRT cars.” Since during rush hours most people are regulars on the trains, if they spent a week or so busting people between 8 and 10 AM and 5 and 7 PM, it would have a big impact.

How about installing cameras on the traffic lights to curb the problem of running red lights? I must see at least 10 or more red light runners a day, and this is an easily solveable problem. They don’t even have to buy cameras for every single traffic light, they could install fake ones too and rotate the real ones every so often like they do in some places in the States. What amazes me is the number of tickets issued by the police every year, but people don’t seem to be obeying the traffic rules any more. The problem is they write tickets for non-dangerous things like illegal scooter parking rather than going after the real offenders like people running red lights, speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, driving on the wrong side of the road, scooters with whole families riding on them, children without safety helmets, etc.

I remember reading an article more than a year ago about someone in the Legislative Yuan (or maybe it was a group of legislators) who proposed a “Beautify Taiwan” piece of legislation. What ever happened to that? There are so many little things that could be done that would make Taipei/Taiwan much more pleasing to the eye. For example, many people have mentioned the iron bars on windows … also, building exteriors should be washed every two years or so (one of those high-pressure water sprays would do wonders).

[quote]I must see at least 10 or more red light runners a day,[/quote]A day :shock: you can see that many per minute in some places. I would say 100 per hour is typical. Maybe 10 per hour if a policeman is there, doing nothing about it of course. Before you say it doesn’t matter (like the police do) I have lost count how many times I have been hit by traffic. It is way into double figures. Almost hit by traffic ? Almost everytime I go outside.
You are just as likely to be given a ticket for jaywalking (which is safer than trying to use so called ‘pedestrian crossings’) than for running someone over on a pedestrian crossing.

Taipei city hall does not want to know about it. Chen didn’t want to know when he was mayor, Ma doesn’t want to know either. I told them that in a situation like Luzhou many people would die if they did nothing, they did nothing.

Not quite nothing, The Taipei police department did send me a virus.

There should also be some kind of enforcement on unsafe scooter loads. You see people carry boards, weird pieces of metal, etc. that stick out and threaten to decapitate anyone who gets too close to the scooter.

Why not have a proper driving test ? Sorry, what a silly idea…

Haha, good joke. It would certainly stop the traffic problem - stop it dead, as all the roads would be empty.

Actually the number one bad driving practice IMO is that of neither looking in the mirrors nor making a ‘lifesaver’ look over the shoulder when making maneuvers such as lane changes and in particular when pulling out from a side road onto a major road. (Or, a look having been performed, pulling out in front of someone regardless). This goes for cars and scooters equally. It would be difficult to curb this practice by police action, though, as it happens everywhere, all the time and automatic cameras can’t pick it up.

If you catch someone’s eye at a stop light shortly after they pulled out in front of you, they will occasionally put their hand up in apology. I want to point out to them that it’s not me they should apologise to, but the next poor guy who isn’t as observant as me and is hurt by their actions. How do you say ‘If you continue to drive like that, you will kill somebody sooner or later’ in Mandarin? I’m serious - if anyone can post this in pinyin, with tones, I’d appreciate it.