Taiwan's Future In Cycles: China Post Calls For Government To Get Serious About Cycling

Today's China Post has done a brave and commendable job in using its editorial page to focus on some of the core issues at stake in the development of Taiwan's bicycle policy. 

I use the word "brave" because it certainly can not be easy for a major publication to run against the grain of the government's steady flow of cheerleading over its own cycling policies that emphasize keeping the bicycle exiled to the Peach Blossom Spring of leisure and recreation. It is also brave of the editorial staff to question these policies that are tailor made to most benefit the bottom lines of some of Taiwan's largest companies. 

If you believe what the government says, this has been a brilliant year for cycling in Taiwan. Sun Moon Lake's biking path “won” some publicity on the CNN GO travel website, and there was another successful Tour de Taiwan. More bikes and locations were added to Taipei's YouBike rental system, and the Taipei Cycle trade show was just as big as ever. But these achievements — just like the doping scandal — are distractions. If our country is to take cycling up a gear from just a leisure-time activity to an integral part of our culture, we need to give serious thought about making commuting by bike safe, convenient and most of all popular.

The China Post rightly identifies that the future of Taiwan as a cycling success story will, at least in the short term, be invisible on the positive side of the balance sheet. It will require some tough choices, long term strategies, and some serious investment without a corporate sponsor. 

Let's face the biggest problem straight off the bat — the central and local governments like cycling because of cash and self-promotion.

The China Post is right on the money. Cycling infrastructure projects provide plenty of political capital for politicians who are eager to ride on the coattails of cycling's popularity while handing out inflated government contracts to other local and regional powers. For these politicians the beauty of these leisure projects is that they do not actually have to upset any apple carts.

If Taiwan's central and local governments actually took cycling's integration into the transportation grid seriously, it would involve deeper, result oriented investment in reorganizing the modern Taiwanese city and risk having to make some unpopular choices that might alienate some of the political actors that enjoy the fruits of the current state of roadway chaos. What I am coyly implying is that there is a lot of money and power at stake in the enterprise of routing of people through the urban landscape. Cycling decentralizes a lot of the transportation infrastructure that has already been negotiated. Embracing urban cycling would provide some opportunities, but it would also upset a lot of apple carts.

Again the constant feeling that local governments are far too focused on the meager profits of tourism and recreation is present here. Indeed, every level of government has failed to truly capitalize on the popularity of riding.

The disparity between Taiwan's leisure and utility cycling was made embarrassingly clear in the faint praise Taiwan's cycling investment received from Jack Becker, a Canadian bicycle advocate who was brought to Taiwan to, presumably, be feted into writing a gushing assessment of some cherry picked selections of the northern bike trail network. Becker rightly ignored the pressures of patronage to write a bit of reality for the government to think about. 

Becker noted:

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.

The China Post echoes this sentiment and what others, including myself, have been saying for a very long time. 

The biggest obstacle is getting bike paths constructed to make commuting safe. Dedicated bicycle lanes are not and will never be sufficient, given the local driving habits and amount of traffic. Taipei's YouBike system is admirable but is not built for commuting and the capital needs a systematic overhaul of its roadways and road rules. Unfortunately other attempts at cycling paths are not encouraging, like ones in which motorists unflinchingly dive in and out of the lane and others with uncomfortable, tiled surfaces.

If Taiwan is to realize its self-declared title as a "Bicycle Paradise", it will take long-term investment that will probably not show dividends until an election cycle far beyond the current political horizon. The government will have to resist playing to large corporate interests and their advisors. 

Not every government project needs to serve a partner in business. Some projects should just be completed to serve the citizen. 

I commend the China Post for their willingness to advocate a balanced investment in Taiwanese cycling. 

Read the entire editorial HERE

The View from Taiwan adds to the discussion HERE

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Taipei Times Letter: Blowing Smoke Against Better Bike Policies

Today's Taipei Times has a juicy letter from one Cilliers Landman that dips into several topics, not the least of which is government spending for bicycle infrastructure.

Landman writes:

In your editorial of April 17, you chose a valid topic to comment about. More people should ride bicycles, not only for recreation, but also to work. Unfortunately, you couldn’t help yourself and had to blame somebody for that not happening. So you went after the Taipei City Government. It’s all their fault.

Don’t you realize that Taiwan will never be Holland or Denmark? People here will never ride their bicycles to work en masse. Should the city government spend money on things like bike lanes and other bicycle-friendly facilities that few, if any, would use, you would be too happy to criticize such spending as a waste of money.

And isn’t it interesting that during the DPP administration, when their policies were ruining Taiwan economically and the president and his wife were stealing millions of dollars from the public, you were right there supporting them?

Mr. Landman is blowing lots of smoke and seems to hardly have the facts or the context of Taiwan's economic or political history at hand to form much of an educated opinion that reaches beyond the screen of partisan talking points.

The bulk of Landman's letter deals primarily with Ma's recent decision to partially revoke the oil subsidies that have artificially capped oil prices at an unsustainable level in the hopes of fueling economic growth. This is a policy that had remained steadily in place since the days of single party authoritarian rule, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could more easily transfer and inject cash into its various industrial monopolies without the hassle of democratic oversight. Landman somehow pins these long-standing policies on the Chen Shui-bian administration, which was characterized as a weak executive branch facing an overwhelming opposition majority in the legislature.

Landman also erroneously believes the Chen administration stole public funds and ruined the economy. Chen was not jailed for misappropriating any public funds and despite a global economic crisis, Taiwan  experienced sustained economic growth from 2002 until 2008, when Taiwan's economy stagnated and even shrunk. Ah... but I digress.

What I really want to point out here is that the local and central governments do play a significant role in how bicycles are integrated into the transportation grid. For decades Taiwanese commuted to work on bicycles and pedicabs. It is not an alien concept to adopt. Whether Taiwanese will ride bicycles to work en masse can be greatly aided by a government that takes cycling seriously rather than an elitist pastime of leisure. The Dunhua Rd. bike lane debacle is ripe for criticism as it was a disastrous waste of NT$60 million of public money (I pay taxes too) on a project that was hastily designed and completed with the aim of blatant political grandstanding and spreading largesse to the valuable constituency of construction contractors without the consultation of cyclists.

Projects like Dunhua Rd. and other ill conceived bike lane projects that consume public funds to benefit only a small minority of recreational riders in the name of "tourism" only serve to sour the public appetite for real, functional bike lanes that provide returns for everyone in the form of a cleaner, less congested environment. This practice should really be characterized as a scandalous misappropriation of public funds that voters and people like Mr. Landman should be concerned about.

These policies fall right in the lap of the Ma administration, which enjoys the benefits of controlling both the executive and legislative... and probably even the judicial branches in government.  Even KMT politicians see that towing the party line may not be in our or their best interests.

Does Cycling Leisure Suit Taiwan's Urban Centers?

The China Post has a couple of timely articles in regard to cycling and Taiwan's bicycle culture.

The first is an editorial, I presume, timed to coincide with this weekend's Taipei Cycle expo. With the paper's pro-KMT leanings, I would also presume the paper seeks to help validate government transportation and recreation policies involving the bicycle.

Weaving through traffic with cycling tights on and headphones blaring, the newest generation of bicycle riders is a unique breed of athletes who are starting to be taken seriously by the government.

After renovating old train tracks and abandoned roads into bike routes, local authorities have been doing everything they can to accommodate the adventure-seeking residents, as is the case with Taipei, which now operates “supply stations” in the city's riverside parks.

The Taipei City Government also announced last year the expansion of its public commuter bicycle rental system, YouBike (微笑單車), to infrequent riders who want to wander into the busy Xinyi District.

The growing interest for the Tour de Taiwan (國際自由車環台公路大賽), which will span from March 10 to 16 from Taipei to Kaohsiung, further illustrates how government authorities have been successfully promoting Taiwan as a “kingdom of bicycles.”

In many ways, the attention Taiwan has given to bicycle infrastructure is laudable in light of other, industrialized nations which will remain anonymous, that continue to fund an automotive lifestyle.

There are a few things I would like to take issue with. I hope my highlights above may be of some assistance.

The bulk of this article deals with the great investment Taiwan's central and local governments have made in recreational cycling. As a recreational cyclist I benefit from some of these investments. I will admit that.

But that opening sentence really strikes a nerve. "Weaving through traffic...". This is where Taiwan's investment has been a bust.

With so much invested in recreational cycling, there is precious little remaining for cycling as utility and urban transportation. The current state of affairs has commuters locked in a daily battle against Taiwan's notoriously chaotic traffic. There is little space being made to incorporate bicycles into the city. I shout this again and again.

The bicycle is a revolutionary machine (pardon the pun). It is a symbol of proletarian mobility all around the world. The bicycle has given people a means to leave the farms, villages and countrysides to find work further afield. Moreover, the bicycle has been a tool for women's liberation all over the world.

The idea of the bike is a very proletarian concept--self propelled transport with minimal investment.

Taiwan's emphasis on the bike for recreation and leisure with far flung bike ways, which are often removed from the urban centers where people live and work, seems to subvert this idea into reserving the bicycle for use as an elitist toy. Without creating space in the cities for bikes as traffic, Taiwan's government limits its use as a tool of mobility for everyone.

Of all the bike accidents I have seen in Taiwan, I would estimate that 90% have been old women on steel bikes making a grocery run.

It might be time to rein in the development of the leisurely rural trails until the urban centers can start to catch up.

Though, as Taiwan markets itself as a virtual "kingdom" of bicycles, I don't imagine that power structure is really interested in the proletarian possibilities the bicycle can offer.

___________________________

The second article deals with a Sun Moon Lake biking event scheduled for April 29.

Registration is now open for the 2012 Merida Sun Moon Lake Biking event on the Merida website (http://www.merida.com.tw). Three routes are open to a total of 4,000 participants — the family leisure course, the around-the-lake course, and the self-challenge course. In addition to receiving unique souvenirs from the Merida, participants will be granted various accommodation and dining discounts in the Sun Moon Lake area.

The self-challenge course, which measures to a total of 60 kilometers, is organized along the most picturesque Sun Moon Lake sites, where bikers can enjoy the quietness of rural sceneries while pushing for one's limits.

This is a very good look at how the bicycle industry is working with the tourism industry to drive sales. This is who really stands to benefit from the government's push for leisure cycling infrastructure projects.

With 4000 participants converged on Sun Moon Lake, combined with the weekend supply of busses hauling Chinese tourists around the perimeter, I can truly imagine enjoying the "quietness of rural sceneries" while pushing my limits. Pass.

Locating Taiwan's Cycling Center

There have been a few articles circulating lately focusing on Taiwan's bicycle infrastructure and the center of Taiwan's cycling culture.

Mark Caltonhill has a wonderful piece on the great strides Kaohsiung has taken in recent years to transform the city from one of Taiwan's least livable cities into one of Taiwan's most progressive in embracing alternative forms of transportation. As I write this I can't help but feel a sad bit of irony that the term, "alternative transportation" includes trains, bicycles and, sadly-- foot traffic.

“In order to make cycling more convenient and safer for citizens, bike paths are constructed as part of the sidewalk, so as to avoid bikes having to compete for road space with cars and motorbikes,” Kent T. Wang, director-general of Kaohsiung’s Department of Transport, said by e-mail.

Furthermore, to encourage cyclists to use the paths, he stressed that “they are built in coordination with road construction projects and in accordance with the same principles of signage, signaling and road marking.”

This will be good news to many cyclists visiting Kaohsiung from other cities—around the world and not just in Taiwan—who often feel themselves to be second-class road users. Taipei’s bike paths, for example, have few signs directing cyclists to destinations and no distance indicators other than those relating to the section of path being used.

Caltonhill's observations are supported by my friend and fellow rider, Michael Cannon from Peimic.com.

In a related article from Cycling Mobility Magazine via Bike Biz, Taiwan's recent investment in infrastructure projects is featured as the cover story. The article states:

For the piece Reid interviewed the ex-director general of Taipei City Transport (who cycles to work) and King Liu, president and founder of Giant. Bike maker Giant invests in cycle infrastructure and promotion projects in Taiwan, as does Merida. The companies invest in order to create more domestic customers.

King Liu started Giant - now the world's biggest maker of quality bikes - in 1972 after his fish-farm was destroyed by a typhoon. He has a customer-creation allegory: "It is more important to grow the fishes than to catch the fish."

Although private enterprise can help support the bicycle infrastructure, Giant's dominance in the production, retail and policy ends of the business, a more apt analogy for their use of using public bicycle infrastructure to generate profits may be more like, "shooting fish in a barrel."

The disparity between the Kaohsiung approach and Liu's approach, which has been adopted by Taipei, (Liu is a senior advisor to ROC President Ma Ying-jiu) hinges on their motivations. As Benjamin Fox recently pointed out at The City Fix, Kaohsiung is willing to take a financial loss to transform the way its citizens live in the city.

Recent progress aside, Kaohsiung faces several financial challenges. The city’s MRT system is steadily losing money and will lean heavily on government subsidies for the foreseeable future. Kaohsiung’s C-Bike program also lost NT $500,000 (US $16,892) a month in 2009 and statistics indicate that rentals are used primarily for leisure rather than a viable transportation alternative for commuters. Despite Kaohsiung’s financial concerns, the city is pressing ahead with public transportation expansion.

Liu's vision, and the vision he is pitching to the government, is one in which the prime motivation is corporate profit. While both methods have their strengths and liabilities, Liu's approach puts the cycling public at the mercy of corporate cycling and what goods and services corporations would like cyclists to purchase. Furthermore, Liu's vision pushes cyclists out toward managed "cycling reservations", while Kaohsiung looks to embrace cycling in the city.

Despite the polar differences between Taiwan's northern and southern metropoles and Kaohsiung's gradual increase in ridership, a recent survey finds that 63% of Hsinchu County residents list cycling as their favorite pastime.

Wu Che-wei, Office of Transportation and Tourism chief, said Hsinchu covers an extensive area, with many county roads and farm paths boasting stunning scenery. Although most are not exclusively for use by bicycles, they are quite suitable for a half or full-day tours.

Bicycle trails extend to every town and city in the area, and there is every sort of themed trip imaginable on the list as well. These include urban trips winding through Hsinchu and Zhudong, as well as routes taking the rider along the seacoast, a path along the Touqian Creek, and a ride around the Baoer Reservoir. Another trip showcases the yesteryear flavor of Hukou Old Street. And naturally, there is no shortage of routes that wind through the beautiful farmlands of the county.

This statistic might look surprising at first, especially with Taichung being the center of Taiwan's bicycle production, and without the additional tax revenue of the special municipalities (Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taichung), the difference may simply be that Hsinchu County, with its lower population density, can better manage traffic and create a safe cycling atmosphere, which is probably the most important factor in enticing people to exchange petrol power to pedal power.

Even as Taiwan struggles with the debate on how to invest in its cycling infrastructure, at least the issue is on the table and most local governments are thinking about how to integrate the bicycle into their collective futures whether for recreational or utilitarian purposes.

Also:

Please take some time to fill out this cycling survey which is being conducted by National Chung Kang University's Institute of International Management. Survey

Linked To The Future?: Taiwan's Bicycle Master Plan

According to a brief report from the Council For Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), an economic advisory council to the Executive Yuan, Taiwan's government has earmarked increased spending aimed at expanding the current bicycle transportation network.

The plan allocates NT$ 4 billion with the goal of laying 3823km of bicycle lanes and related infrastructure.

Part of this plan allocates NT$870 million for 2011 intended speed the completion of the "Integrated Bikeway Network Construction Plan", which aims to link existing bicycle networks and create bicycle transportation corridors between urban and rural communities, and between business and residential districts.

The plan also seeks to invest in other centers for bicycle culture, including velodromes and recreational resources.

I. The Good:

It is refreshing to see Taiwan's government taking the initiative and pledging funds for wider bicycle networks beyond simply recreation, which has, thus far, been the major recipient of public funding.

The report highlights the importance of building bikeways between districts and localities. It speaks to the diversity of Taiwan's bicycle cultures, and it imagines the bicycle as a means to seek economic revitalization of some areas; this could potentially include areas that have seen economic decline due to alternative transportation routes, or other demographic changes that have had a negative impact on the local economies.

II. The Bad:

A project like this will also encounter many potential pitfalls, which include:

a) Planning:

The central government will have to resist special interests and take this plan directly to the localities to see what riders and potential riders might require to become interested in such a network. This plan can not be directed from the board rooms of the bicycle manufacturers or in a paternalistic top-down approach directed from a politician's personal viewpoint. This network needs to be built from the ground up if it is to serve the public with open public debate.

It is not just the bicycle interests that pose a threat to an effective bicycle network, it is also politics at the national and local level. There will undoubtedly be local politicians, factions, organized crime groups, business leaders and a muddy mixture of all of them fighting to pull and manipulate these routes for their own benefit, which may run counter to the interests of the rider. We have seen this with other transportation systems (bussing), where a powerful local interest shifts public transportation routes to benefit their own businesses.

Another problem is graft. It is not inconceivable for local representatives to be allocated a budget reserved for bicycle trails. The local representatives *may* simply purchase several dozen "bicycle" tiles to embed in existing sidewalks and designate it a "bike trail", and thus pocketing the difference. This process, much like any other public construction project, is ripe for organized bid rigging as well. It is not unheard of for organized crime groups to collude on rigging bids for construction projects and inflate a bid two or three times the competitive rate. In many cases local representatives are linked closely to these construction companies and interest groups. It will take dedicated oversight to ensure the public is benefitting from this investment and it is not just a scheme to buy votes and influence elections.

b) Management

This system can not work if it is not regularly managed, supported and enforced. The government must allocated annual funding for maintenance, public safety and law enforcement to ensure these bikeways remain safe and unobstructed at all times. The trouble with many of the current systems is that they are made useless by unauthorized obstructions like parked cars, scooters, private vendors and pedestrian traffic. The purpose of any transportation system is to ensure flow. I can also imagine some locations being ripe for both petty and violent crime if not regularly enforced. Regular, fair and predictable enforcement is one of the key necessities for any transportation system to work well. Riders need to feel comfortable riding these systems.

c) Balance

Although thus system pays lip service to balancing the interests of Taiwan's different types of riders, there has been far too much emphasis on bicycle tourism. The government has made very much noise over the past 3 years about boosting tourism and its economic agreements with China, but it risks a) over emphasizing one area and b) replacing good, high earning jobs in competitive industries with low earning

service jobs in tourism. Although the government can boast some success in job creation through tourism, the type of jobs being created are not on par with those being exported. Moreover, these jobs do not require the the type of competitive skills educated Taiwanese hope to leverage with their college degrees. Tourism is a superfluous industry of leisure. It is open to manipulation and political interference. Putting too much emphasis on Chinese tourists is especially risky for this reason.

Taiwan's bikeways should focus on bringing people to their jobs and not simply be the job.

I am glad to see an enhanced vision coming from such a conservative body. I am also glad the CEPD envisions bicycles as a part of Taiwan's future economic development beyond export and tourism. Now we need to see lip service transformed into public service.

I will be watching these developments closely.