[metroXpress]

Neihu line won't close longer than 1 week: Hau


TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Neihu-Muzha Line of Taipei City's mass rapid transit (MRT) will not be shut down for more than one week for continuous adjustments and testing, and the decision concerning the length of service suspension will be made today, said Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin yesterday.

Following the newest round of snags yesterday that resulted in two eight-minute power downs of the Neihu-Muzha Line earlier in the day, Hau maintained that it is inconceivable to suspend services on the line for one week or one month at a time when asked by reporters if the line will be shut down during the Deaflympic Games from Sept. 5 to 15.

After two consecutive weekends of service suspensions on the Neihu-Muzha line, the problem-plagued transit line once again experienced three failures yesterday, causing the already-low passenger confidence to plunge even further.

A Taipei City parent Chang Shu-juan asked her daughter to leave for school half-an-hour earlier in anticipation of transit chaos whenever the line fails again.

Without any reassurance of transporting the students to schools on time, the city instead made the students a consolation promise; students will not be penalized for arriving schools late if they were delayed by MRT failures, said Wu Ching-shan, head of the city-level department of education.

However, some students were less concerned about tardy records than their right to education. A Neihu High School student Chen Jo-heng said that she has lost all confidence in the Neihu line and would not take it to school, because she would miss classes if she were delayed by service disruptions.

On students' first day back to school yesterday, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) arranged for 120 buses to stand by for possible service disruptions.

At 6:53 a.m. yesterday morning, a south-bound train falsely detected an obstruction on the tracks. The signal problem was resolved within eight minutes. The same problem returned at 7:34 p.m. causing a 28-minute shut down and trapping 25 passengers in a tunnel near Xinhai Station.

Besides computer issues, the system also suffered structural problems. At 2:28 p.m., standard wear and tear of the cement support for the 10-year-old Muzha section of the line near Zhongshan Middle School Station disrupted services for another eight minutes.

Compared to the peak morning hours, between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., last week, the line transported over 10,000 more passengers yesterday.

The many problems experienced by the integrated Neihu-Muzha line since its inauguration on July 4 have prompted a fervent discussion of whether the Canadian Bombardier Inc.-built Neihu portion of the line should be abandoned in order to save the French Mantra-constructed Muzha section, which ran with relatively few glitches in the last 10 years.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/l...Neihu-line.htm