Former Taipei City Ke Wenzhe (formerly) questioned that the city treasury is not an inexhaustible cornucopia, YouBike is free for half an hour "Where does the money come from?" (file photo)

[Reporter Huang Jingyu/Taipei Report] Taipei Mayor Jiang Wanan announced that YouBike is expected to be free for the first half hour in January next year.

In this regard, Ke Wenzhe, the former mayor of Taipei and chairman of the People's Party, questioned that the city treasury is not an inexhaustible cornucopia. "Where does the money come from?" The first half-hour fee may not achieve the goal of promoting green transportation, and may also increase maintenance costs.

Ke Wenzhe posted on Facebook that financial discipline is a political value and a political conscience. There is no free lunch in the world, and the city treasury is not an inexhaustible cornucopia. He questioned Jiang Wanan's announcement that Taipei City will resume YouBike in January next year. 30 minutes free, where does the money come from?

Ke Wenzhe pointed out that when he was the mayor of Taipei, he canceled the free service of YouBike for the first 30 minutes, and changed it to charge 5 yuan for the first 30 minutes, and the city government subsidized 5 yuan. At that time, the city government had to subsidize more than 200 million yuan a year. In more cases, the expenditure and pressure on the city treasury brought about by all free services will at least double, and it will look like 500 million a year.

He pointed out that the purpose of canceling all free YouBikes is to promote green transportation and encourage people to take more MRTs and buses, and then take YouBikes for the last mile to connect. At that time, their investigation found that if it was all free, many people would use YouBikes as a sport As many as 70% of people who use leisure equipment only once a month make it difficult for those who really need to use YouBike to commute. This not only fails to achieve the goal of promoting green transportation, but also greatly increases the maintenance cost.

Ke Wenzhe said that in 2019 and 2020, New Taipei City and Taoyuan City were named and reviewed by the city government audit office because of the free policy of the first 30 minutes. For the government's financial sustainability, user fees should be returned.

Seeing that both New Taipei City and Kaohsiung City have canceled the free fee, Taipei City has turned back by "spreading money" in order to please voters.