No cars in Taipei? No way!

People with fertile imaginations might not necessarily agree.

Three hundred years ago, when Taiwan's pioneers in Tataocheng were still driving around in carts pulled by oxen, who would have thought that Taipei would one day be full of four-wheel cars, to which you would just need to add a little gasoline to exceed 100 kilometers an hour? Who could have believed that you could drive from Keelung in the north to Kaoshiung in the south in five hours--and all the while avoiding the glaring sun and drenching rain. If one of our ancestors had been such a visionary, he would have been branded a starry-eyed dreamer!

Are electric cars the stars of tomorrow? Think about it. If the car could replace the ox cart, it too will face replacement one day. Along the long river of time, when oil is all used up, "the gasoline driven car will face the day when it rules the road no longer!" says architect Li Chiang-lang.

This isn't some fantastic tale from a modern day Arabian Nights. The fact of the matter is that pollution caused by burning auto fuel has continued being a problem with no solution. Adding on concern about the energy crisis, experts forecast that at the end of the 21st century there will be need for another transportation revolution. To this purpose, the industrial nations have been working non-stop at researching and developing alternative vehicles so that fuel is no longer necessary for motion.

Today there are already a few places in Europe where two percent of all cars sold must be electric. America and neighboring Japan expects electric cars to make up three percent of the market in six years. Electric motorbikes today are also hitting the domestic market, but because their battery storage technique is inchoate and their horsepower and staying power not yet the equal of their gas-driven counterparts, there are great obstacles to their promotion.

Electric cars, moreover, have batteries that contain lead acid, which can not be broken down for many hundreds of years. Before a recycling system is established, they will also be a source of pollution. But the electric car is squeaky clean in comparison to the omnipresent pollution wreaked by its gasoline-burning predecessor, and the Environmental Protection Administration is forcefully encouraging its development. But unless some major revisions are made to this promising star of tomorrow--so you can fold it like an umbrella and store it away when not in use--the electric car will provide no solution for traffic jams and parking hassles.

Going to work electronically: Therefore, some people are casting aside the model of thinking wherein motion necessarily involves people, vehicles and roads to look for a substitute for vehicles.

In the West in the 1970s many papers discussed the "electronic work place." Since computers and other information technologies can serve as the link between companies doing business and between the office and the home, the consequent reduced number of journeys could in theory provide the solution to urban traffic congestion.

Already many large cities are going all out to promote computer communication and make it an integral part of city life. In Holland, which has made its place in the world through commerce, the busyness of business is all but hidden from the eye, and traffic is light. "Electronic communication plays a part in this," affirms Lin Chien-yuan, an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University.

Can Taipei do the same? Some people believe that Taipei will become a city dominated by the service sector and corporate headquarters, a place where work consists largely of exchanging information and managing data. Office buildings are gradually becoming more and more computerized. As long as there is information media, work can be done anywhere with the same result. If only telecommunications are amply used to link together, many trips to and from work will be saved.

Moving sidewalks: Other people hold otherwise. Virtually every company in Taipei is equipped with a fax and a computer, and the day is coming when every home will have them as well. As a result, many people have left the world of nine to five, electing instead to work out of their own offices. But the streets of Taipei have seemingly yet to reap much benefit from this development.

Because there is no way to eliminate person-to-person communication for medical treatment, leisure activities and shopping, many scholars doubt if it is possible to relieve transit congestion of a city now approaching three million.

But those who love to dream aren't reining in their imaginations. Some have proposed an even bolder scheme. One domestic construction firm has drawn up a blueprint for moving sidewalks to go out in four directions from each stop on the Fuhsing South Road MRTS line.

Can you imagine a Taipei where everyone is being transported to their required destination by moving sidewalks? On the street you might actually run into long-lost friends--and don't forget to shake hands! In fact, the designing and engineering of moving sidewalks to transport people in the vast city of Taipei would constitute a massive and complicated task. This is one invention that still needs to be mulled over in many people's brains.

The imaginative can draw the world: Opinions differ on any mode of transportation that exceeds the realm of the present. Some people will always say that there's a long way to go to before it moves from dreamland to the real world, while others will say that its day will come. Nevertheless, transportation problems have pricked people's imaginations. Who would have thought that traffic jams were meaningful after all!

And didn't someone say, "the world has been outlined by those with fertile imaginations"? A hundred years ago, didn't a group of such people draw up today's "car world"?

A chance encounter in the twilight....

You have a road still to travel; I want to make my way home. We were fated to meet in a no-parking zone and have it out.

On the earth's surface, the roads have already been developed to saturation, and they have nowhere to go but up. If you drop your guard for a moment, you'll lose your way.

Taipei at night, Taipei at night--the lights are like running waterand the cars like dragons. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）