I’m excited about some of the meetings coming up over the next week! Tomorrow will be with several transportation and urban studies professors in Taichung including the future transportation department head for Taichung. Any questions folks think would be good to ask them?
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For context Taichung has a population of 2.8 million people and is much more car and scooter centric than Taipei. The transit network is mainly buses with the first MRT line opening this year. There is currently one 17.3 km stretch of bus lane operational.
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Buses are free for 90% of trips you would make in Taichung and the fares are paid by city government as part of their efforts to reduce auto dependency. The new MRT line has potential to further shift mode share to transit, but will need a network of feeder buses to succeed.
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CC: @chia_lung I’m going to your home city tomorrow to discuss transportation research in Taichung 😄Let me know if there are certain people that you think are important to reach out to at 逢甲大學! I’m currently planning to meet with 陳建元; 林良泰; 葉昭甫; 黃啟倡.
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In February I covered the impressive increase for bus ridership in Taichung that was based on the research of the professors I’ll be meeting with at Feng Chia University.
Learn about how free fares and bus lanes helped car-dominated Taichung’s bus system go from 13k riders a a day in 2001 to 373k riders a day in 2018 (over a 20 fold increase)!
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Meeting was super informative today! Will have more on it at some point soon.
Had the pleasure today to meet Taichung’s director of Public Transportation Wen-Cheng Chen and Urban Planning Professor Simon Chen. Taichung has been very successful in increasing bus ridership and improving service and they are preparing to open their first MRT line soon!
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