President Ma Ying-jeou was touting a new bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the central city of Taichung on Sunday. He said the system was designed by professionals to attract more people to use mass transport.
Ma said that the number of public bus users in Taichung has surged 25-fold since the system began running on a trial basis in March. It went into formal commercial operation starting on August 17 as an extension of Taichung’s planned mass rapid transit system.
Right now there is one BRT line up and running; five more will be added in the future and will travel to places that the metro cannot reach.
President Ma’s trip to Taichung on Sunday was to stump for Mayor Jason Hu, who is seeking reelection in year-end elections. Both Ma and Hu are from the ruling Kuomintang (KMT), of which Ma concurrently serves as chairman.
While there has been some criticism of the BRT system, with concerns that it has backed up traffic in key areas of the city, President Ma said that Taichung citizens were “casting their ballots with their feet.”