The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said artists and academics in New Taipei City’s Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里) districts would be invited to join a committee to review the profile of the soon-to-be-built Tamkang Bridge (淡江大橋).
The highway authority yesterday announced that it has recently chosen six qualified bridge engineering teams from Europe, North America and Asia through a preliminary review.
They are to enter the next phase of the competition, in which they are to pitch their ideas on the design of the bridge.
DGH Deputy Director-General Hsia Ming-sheng (夏明勝) said that the focus in this round of competition was on the overall contour of the bridge and the significance of the design. He said that the bridge, once built, must complement the sunset over the Tamsui River, one of the tourist attractions in the district.
Aside from engineers, Hsia said that five local artists and academics would be included in the bridge profile selection jury, adding that government representatives are to serve in the jury as well.
According to the DGH, five of the six teams are to be selected to enter the next round of competition, which is be evaluated by five independent experts and two jurors serving as the convener and the deputy convener.
The jury in this round would review the concepts governing the bridge design, the structure, the budget, the use of labor, the firms’ records of fulfilling contracts, and other factors.
The first-prize winner would be awarded the priority price negotiation right, the directorate said, adding that the contract would be given to the top-prize winner if the negotiation is successful.
Each of the four remaining teams would receive a prize of NT$2 million (US$65,000) to compensate their participation expenses, it added. Under the DGH plan, the 12.06km bridge would connect Tamsui and Bali districts, with the width of the bridge being 44m and the height being 20m.
The highway on the bridge would have a speed limit of 80kph.
Meanwhile, part of the bridge is reserved for the construction of the light-rail track, which is about 8m wide.
The construction cost of the bridge is estimated to top NT$15.3 billion, the directorate said, adding that it would divert the traffic volume from the Guandu Bridge (關渡大樓) and help develop the Danhai New Town (淡海新市鎮).
Prior to the launch of the project, the construction of the bridge was vehemently opposed by local residents and artists because they said the bridge would hinder the view of the sunset over the Tamsui River.
They had asked the Ministry of Culture to designate the sunset as “a cultural sight” and said that the government should investigate the eco-environment and archeological sites at the mouth of the Tamsui River and seek to protect them.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching