Department of Transportation

The Traffic Engineering Office, Taipei City Government has stipulated that as of 1:00 p.m., November 24, 2012 (Sat), motorcycles travelling from east to south on Ketagalan Boulevard may turn left into Section 1, Chongqing South Road; this means that motorcyclists will no longer have to detour via Huaining Street and Baoqing Road to turn left onto Chongqing South Road. The new traffic control measure will reduce motorcycle detour distance and travelling time.
The Office stated that the Ketagalan Boulevard and Chongqing South Road intersection is a T junction. Ketagalan Boulevard has 5 lanes in each direction (10 lanes in total), with the 3 inside lanes being motorcycle-forbidden lanes. Since the Ketagalan Boulevard and Chongqing South Road intersection is directly in front of the main entrance of the Office of the President, in order to avoid travel route conflicts between vehicles waiting to turn onto north side of Chongqing South Road and cars coming from the Office of the President, and also considering that there is no space in the intersection to allocate the motorcycle left-turn waiting area, motorcycles were thus formerly forbidden to turn left from Ketagalan Boulevard onto Chongqing South Road. Motorcycles that wished to turn left had to travel on Huaining Street and Baoqing Road to turn left onto Chongqing South Road. However, due to the constant complaints from citizens regarding the no-left-turn control for motorcycles, the Office has, after comprehensive evaluation according to the traffic nature, road type and traffic signal control and time, stipulated the removal of the no-left-turning rule for the aforementioned road section as of 1:00 p.m., November 24, 2012 (Sat).
The Office will remove the “No Motorcycles” sign on the inner third lane and the motorcycles left-turn sign will also be correspondingly set up at the front of the inner third lane for motorcycles turning left. The 2 inner lanes will remain motorcycle-forbidden lanes in order to reduce motorcycles changing lanes resulting in traffic crossing. The outer 2 lanes remain right turning lanes. Also, since the
outermost lane of Ketagalan Boulevard in westward direction is over 6.6 meters in width, in order to reduce crossing and conflict between cars on the outer side and motorcycles, a fast and slow vehicles dividing line will be designated on the outermost lane from the Gongyuan Road intersection to Chongqing South Road section, in order to enhance traffic safety.
In preparation for the lane change, the adjustments of related traffic facilities will begin at 9:00 a.m. November 24, 2012, and is estimated to be completed by 1:00 p.m. After the adjustments, motorcycles will immediately be able to turn left into Section 1, Chongqing South Road from Ketagalan Boulevard. In the event of a raining day on the day of the adjustment work, the change will be postponed to a date to be separately announced. The Office appeals to road users of the area (especially motorcyclists) to follow the on-site road markings and signals, take note of the pedestrians on the sidewalk and maintain traffic order and safety.

2013-01-14