“What is the biggest transportation challenge at this time?” That was the
Enough motorcyclists warrant special signage in prominent road traffic areas. Hsinchu City, Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
question posed yesterday to the Commissioner for Transportation for Taipei City. Motorcycles was the response. What to do with the motorcycles is the question.
At the Bicycle Friendly Forum in Hsinchu held at the Chung-Hua University, the question posed was: “How do you shift the motorcyclists to cycling?” Is it a matter of undertaking in-depth psychological and human behaviour studies to understand the motivation of driving a motorcycle and its influence, that would cause a shift to cycling? Is it
With Transportation Commissioner of Taipei, Taiwan. 2011
simple a fact that needs to be accepted that young people are too mesmerized by speed and by the flexibility of winding and twisting through traffic? Is it the rush of emotions of seeing how close one can cut off a car before one is lying on a pavement with blood flowing onto the asphalt?
I was only in Taiwan for 5 days and came upon a police officer diverting traffic around a motorcycle lying on its side. A large pool of blood was next to the driver’s seat.
The Commissioner of Transportation is concerned: Last year there were 85 road deaths with 60% being motorcyclists of which 80% were under 30 years. “What a waste of the young” he said.
The Tale of Two Cities
Why are not more young people or more motorists and drivers cycling instead?
Hsinchu's 17 km. bike path promoted for cycling tourists. Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
Hsinchu City
While the Mayor is a former cycling racer, his past enthusiasm for cycling has not been reflected in cycling infrastructure on the street. The city is very proud of its 17 kilometres bike path along the seashore. The bike path attracts recreational cyclists from cities two and three hours away. They rent a motor coach and come in droves. This very expensive bike path winds its way on stilts over wetlands and along sand dunes. On streets, there are very few separated lanes that could be mistaken for bike lanes, since droves of motorcyclists ride in these lanes. This is a hilly city with many roads descending into valleys, then immediately followed by climbs to peaks with constant rolls of hills.
Trying out Taipei's public bike share system. Taiwan 2011.
Why are they not using electric-assist bicycles instead? Does not seem to be in their psychic. Nor are bike lanes in the psychic of municipal staff at this time.
Taipei City
It’s a large city with a downtown that has evolved over the last 20 some years –home for 2 million inhabitants. Streets around the downtown city hall, have been set up to showcase their cycling infrastructure which consist mainly of bike lanes on shoulders between street
Bike share kiosk. Taipei, Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
curbs and sidewalks. Intersection crossings are coloured. Cycling signal heads give the go ahead to cross intersections. Bike paths along the river have been completed. Now, connections are being made to the downtown, retail and commercial cores of neighbourhoods. Public bike share operated by the city appear around the city hall. With 5,000 bicycles in action, the commissioner feels that the service area is way too small. 10,000 bicycles would be a better number.
While the network is still far from completion, the cycling infrastructure is taking shape with separated bike paths beside the sidewalk as the infrastructure
Some areas of city are bike-friendly. Taipei, Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
of choice. From this, cycling mode share has risen to 5.7% in a city where rapid transit is a favourite of commuters and driving is taking a back seat to motorcycling.
Cycling Mode Share – Annual
· Transit 47%
· Motorcycling 25%
· Personal driving 17%
· Cycling 5.7%
· Walking 3%
· Other 2.3%
A few years ago, the city put in coloured bike lanes along a busy street. The reaction has been that these lanes have been a failure. The design did not consider the hoards of taxis that drop off people along the street curb side. Nor was there consideration for drivers who use the lanes to squeeze by other drivers. Nor was there consideration for the motorcyclists crossing the lanes to get to the parking on the shoulder adjacent to the sidewalk.
Bullet train. Taipei, Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
Street parking is a challenge. Parking restriction sign posts, which we use frequently to tie up our bikes, are missing in Taipei. So are thin trees which also are frequently used for parking. Formal parking tends to have wheel bender racks.
Final Thoughts
If cycling is to grow for the two cities, there needs to be complete networks with separated cycling facilities.
Currently, there are a few casual cyclists on the road during the week. On weekends the recreational cyclists come out in large numbers, some with spandex, some with casual clothing.
In these cities, the cyclists appear well-behaved, the motorcyclists are not. The drivers use a free flow style of driving. Red lights are some times adhered to while not.
Compact, sophisticated mobile coffee minitruck by Hsinchu's recreational bike path. Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
European and North American focus may be to move drivers to cycling for the usually reasons – running out of cheap oil, obesity and personal health, health care costs, and the contamination of the environment, both air and noise.
In Taiwan, the focus of shifting people to cycling is not so much the private car but more the shifting of motorcyclists. The number of motorcyclists exceeds car drivers on the
Windpower and its recreational bike path by ocean. Hsinchu, Taiwan 2011. Photo by HJEH Becker
road. The needless, annual death and serious injuries of your people under 30 is a prime factor for shifting, as well.
Additional Reading
Velo-city Team on the Move: Hsinchu, Taiwan. June 24, 2011. See more photos of Hsinchu’s 17 km. cycling facilities.
Third Wave Cycling Blog 
A good quickie analysis!
Why aren’t more people taking bicycles? Random observations:
1. What to do with them? Bicycle theft is rampant and thieves can blow through any lock in less than 10 seconds (they hit them with liquid N and then shatter them with hammers). Many employers do not have or will not make, room for bikes. They do not encourage cycling to work.
2. Bike paths, as you’ve noted, are paths to nowhere. They are planned solely for the purpose of pumping up national bike path numbers. They do not connect into the city, or go out to interesting places, being merely plopped onto otherwise unused land. They are not enforced by police. Taiwan’s policy planners do not envision bikes as anything more than recreation and tourism vehicles. Commuting by bike is not in the minds of local consumers either. Summers are steamy, winters are wet. Workplaces seldom make provision for that.
3. Bikes are not promoted as commuter vehicles by local bike makers, but as recreation and leisure vehicles for limited use.
4. Physical activity is not valued or promoted in Taiwanese culture; young people are expected to study, not waste their time hiking, biking, camping, running, or playing sports. The idea that children are to be flung out the door and not to return until covered with dirt is completely foreign. Biking suffers from this problem. Note that this culture hates walking even more than the car- mad USA. To change to biking means changing the way Taiwanese think about physical activity.
5. Taiwanese males do not find physically strong females attractive, so females will not engage in activities that give them muscles. This is slowly changing.
6. Motorcycles are cheap relative to local income. I can buy a good second-hand motorcycle here for $20K or about half of avg monthly income; our current one is eight years old and was purchased used. That’s the entry level price for a road bike at one of the major sellers; a good road bike will cost 2X-3X that. Motorcycles are cheap, easy to park, and convenient. They are also an important component of Taiwan’s just in time manufacturing systems and of the island’s excellent local delivery systems (we just laugh at the inconvenience and expense of the US). Moreover, my wife and I can share a scooter but we can’t share a bike; we’re two different sizes. In the end, people will not move off motorcycles unless they have powerful incentives.
Also, I would like to point this out: I feel much safer in Taiwan’s traffic than at home in the US or elsewhere on a bike. In the US cars hate bikes and, insanely, people are allowed to carry guns to vent their road rage. In Taiwan all drivers are totally conscious of the possibility that anything can appear on the right side of the right lane, from vendors to funerals to bikes to people picking up recyclables. They are thus always leaving space for a bike. Once you get used to the traffic flow it is ok. In the US people set out to “door” you or ram you or cut you off; in Taiwan deliberate attacks on bikers are unheard of. When I biked in Borneo last year everyone was exquisitely courteous and polite, but it was quite unsafe, as the drivers had no idea it was possible for a cyclist to appear on their shoulder and those drove as if we did not exist. Scary.
Good luck, keep coming back so you can pressure the government here to wake up.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan
My most recent trip in Taiwan:
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2011/07/awesome-northern-cross-riding.html
Well, I can agree that there are entirely too many scooters on the roads, but, for me, it would be impractical to switch to a bicycle to get to work.
Comfort/aesthetic-wise, Taiwan is too hot for me to not sweat on a bicycle…I already do a little on my scooter. I work 13mi away from where I live, and there’s no MRT, so what to do? It’s an uphill battle most of the way, too, and on busy streets (like any aren’t in Taipei and Xinbei, right?)
Another factor is time: it takes me half an hour to get from my place of residence to work; it would take much longer on a bicycle.
And, it’s not that I hate bicycles, far from it: I rode quite frequently back in the U.S.
Also, I’d like to point out that cyclists should be going at the pace of cars, or at least the speed limit, when using the same roads (speaking of the ones without special bike lanes, here). Many of the bicycles I encounter on the road are much, much slower, causing more difficulty for the motorized vehicles and more accidents. But, you’re right, scooters and motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic is also a huge hazard……..so are the buses and taxis that don’t use their lights and ignore others when they cross three lanes of traffic on 中山北路 in Taipei City.
I’d like to see reform to the structuring of traffic, not just to allow cyclists on the road with greater ease and towards greater safety, but for all vehicles. Current regulations and signage allow for more accidents rather than prevent them, in some cases, as you pointed out.
It’s not really that scooters are terrible (OK, they can be), but that traffic law, traffic signage, traffic code, traffic directives, traffic in general…sucks in Taiwan.
Anyway, quite enjoyed your article ^^
“Also, I’d like to point out that cyclists should be going at the pace of cars, or at least the speed limit, when using the same roads (speaking of the ones without special bike lanes, here). Many of the bicycles I encounter on the road are much, much slower, causing more difficulty for the motorized vehicles and more accidents. But, you’re right, scooters and motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic is also a huge hazard……..so are the buses and taxis that don’t use their lights and ignore others when they cross three lanes of traffic on 中山北路 in Taipei City”.
What is the car driving speed limit in Taipei? I assume you are talking about cyclists who should ride as the same speed as cars in congested traffic.
Frankly I don’t ride as fast as cars in moderately paced traffic. And I’ve been a regular cyclist for transportation and touring (see previous article in this blog) for nearly last 19 yrs. Yes, real cycling road hammerheads can cycle as fast as cars in a big city, but that’s more the minority –even in North America. We can’t use that as a benchmark when we want to expand the cycling mode share and build better cycling infrastructure, which includes separated bike lanes in strategic areas of a city.
One of the biggest hurdles in many parts of Taiwan is the belief that every policy must have a direct corollary to “free” market economics. Politicians and developers (often linked through the grey areas between organized crime and politics) seek to promote policies that see their only legitimacy by how well they serve private enterprise. The value of an infrastructure project is rarely based upon environmental, social, community, or any other value beyond the margins of profit. It is through demonstrations of potential revenue generation that political actors in Taiwan justify their projects.
I think Ryan over at Savage Minds has some really great insight on part of the problem.
“Tourism zones cater to tourists, and they tend to benefit the politicians, investors, and developers who own the land, businesses, hotels, marinas, and golf courses where those tourists spend their money.
These places may be known internally as idyllic, beautiful, and desirable destinations, but they are also notorious for their high socio-economic inequality, if not outright social segregation (see Lopez et al 2006; Clancy 2001; Castellanos 2010; Hiernaux 1999; Wilson 2008).”
We see this in Taiwan as bike paths are created to benefit a select few and help consolidate a politician’s network of patronage. Who owns the restaurants, hotels, beverage service, kiosks, private transportation companies, entertainment, and other tourist related enterprises along the trails? You might find it is the same people who are also connected to the construction and gravel industries. They may also be the same people, or proxies for the same people sitting in the Legislative Yuan or the KMT central standing committee.
There is no profit motive to reorganize traffic. People are not going to disrupt the status quo until they feel there is an alternative.
I have to applaud Kaohsiung for taking other factors into account; lifestyle factors that will really make it the more bike friendly metropole… maybe not now, but in 10 years time. Kaohsiung is actually losing money on its bike program in order to create space for bicycles to be integrated into the urban landscape.
This is merely a piece of information: A TV clip of Becker interviewed on a Taiwanese news channel:
http://ap.ntdtv.com/b5/20110627/video/66193.html
It is very interesting. The thrust of the news segment was that the number of kilometers Taipei has allocated for bike trails has put Taipei’s bike trail system on par with other global leaders in bicycle infrastructure.
From an ex-Taiwanese, now American, born and lived there in Taiwan, until he moved abroad for university education in late 1990’s:
“People work hard and study hard in Taiwan. Generally, sporting was not encouraged as a hobby in the school system, but physical development was emphasized for relaxation and public health reasons.
Most people in Taipei can commute with the subway, and because it is hot, and you don’t want to smell bad for work or school, so you use the public transportation system. Plus the subway is safer – you can’t get killed on it.
But many people commute to school via bicycle. When one reaches 18 and can get a license, many ride a scooter.
It works. So why change it so you can sweat in 95 degrees Fahrenheit weather with 90% humidity?”
He has been a regular cyclist for past few years.
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