Taiwan Subway / Metro

I just took the subway for the first time yesterday in Taipei, Taiwan. It was very clean and seemed quite safe. There were rules that my friends told me:

1. No gum chewing
2. No water
3. No food
4. Navy blue seats are priority seating for the elderly (do I count?).

The hand rails were secure and comfortable and it wasn't too crowded at all.

We rode from Longshan Temple to Zhongxia Fuxing. The cost was equivalent to about 80 cents US dollars, or in Taiwan money (NT), it was about 25 NT each way.

We got these plastic blue tokens that could be sensed by the "turnstiles" and then you deposited them on the way out so they could presumably be recycled.


Here's a map of the Metro in Taipei (English) and here it is in Chinese version of Metro map in Taipei according too the TRTC website (Taiwan Rapid Transit Corp): The count of average daily folk aboard the metro is about 1.2 million people per DAY in May of 2009. Looking at 2008, last year's statistics, it was about the same amount of riders per day on the Taipei metro.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had that kind of traffic for Modesto, CA (map of Modesto, CA, USA - where I'm from). Well, actually, I'm glad we don't have that kind of traffic. I meant perhaps the efficiency and the amount of business that it does - or perhaps I should wish that this was the efficiency for our Plastic Surgery Modesto, CA practice.