My hometown, Taichung, populated over a million people, is the third largest city in Taiwan. The city government has improved the bus service; however, the residents of Taichung, including me, still expect more changes to the transportation system.
Unlike Taipei, Taichung has no MRT or subway system. Citizens' one and only option of the public transportation in Taichung is bus. We have many bus lines to choose, but because of the increasing oil prices, it takes more money. The expensive fare has always been a major complaint. Numerous students, me as well, depend on the buses to go to school every single day, we surely think it would be better if we have a more convenient and economical system.
Over the years, MRT has been a topic discussed in the city council and central government. Some officials said that the plan requires careful consideration. Take Kaohsiung for example. Many districts suffer from land subsidence because of the underground construction. Of course, such consequence is not what we would like to see in our own county. We want a complete and perfect system to better the situation.
If we had MRT system, the air pollution may be less. Buses are accelerated by petroleum, it contains one of the greenhouse gases－carbon dioxide. Even though it produces less pollution than the motorcycles buzzing around in the city; still, it is also the source of bad atmosphere. Once we had MRT, we longer need to worry about problems like air pollution or heavy traffic. In Taichung, buses are a constant threat to the motorcyclists. We don’t have bus lanes like Taipei, so the buses are always behind, next to, or in front of lots of motorcycles on the road. This creates many car accidents. When passengers are going to get off, some bus drivers will pull over in a reckless way. They don’t care if there are motorcyclists. This behaviour put both bus driver and the motorcyclist in danger. If we can commute by MRT, the potential problem may disappear.
Hey Now from Augustana
I think it's a pretty good song:)
