Banqiao Station is a transportation hub composed of four railways, with hundreds of thousands of people coming and going every day. New Taipei City Councilor Huang Shujun today accused the New Taipei Special Economic Zone's underground connecting channel and Banqiao Station of poor management of public facilities. The underground train toilets have been "old, smelly, and dirty" for many years, and have been called "one of the worst in the north." The underground tunnel for transferring to MRT or buses is like an "barrier-free hell," with management units riding horse-drawn carriages and playing football with each other, ignoring the needs and safety of citizens.
Recently, some netizens on the social platform Threads complained, "The toilet on B1 of Banqiao Station near Cosmetics is really disgusting. Every time I walk in, I want to spit it out. I would rather hold my urine than go in." "I don't know why it is not renovated? It's old, smelly, terribly smelly, and there are a lot of bugs. I used it once when I was a child. It has left a mark ever since." "The smell of urine and strange stench are overpowering, and the environment is so dirty that it looks like the third world."
"This is not just a cleanliness issue, but also an administrative laziness on the part of the management unit!" Huang Shujun pointed out that in addition to the stench of the toilet environment, the emergency service bells in accessible toilets are poorly designed and at the wrong height, and often malfunctions have not been repaired. Banqiao Station's transfer to MRT or bus underground tunnels is like an "accessible hell". The guide bricks lack continuity, and some road sections are damaged and broken. There are even outrageous situations where the visually impaired are guided to the lane or directly into the wall.
Huang Shujun said that according to city government information, the administrative units for the underground passages in the Sinban Special Economic Zone are complex and multi-headed. For example, the Taiwan Railways is responsible for the station, the Transportation Bureau is responsible for the bus station underground tunnel, and the Department of Maintenance is responsible for the passage of the Sinban Special Economic Zone. They all work independently. If the guide bricks at the junction are broken, the responsibilities will be passed on to each other, and every step of the transfer process for the visually impaired is like stepping on a thunderbolt.
Huang Shujun said that every time the New Taipei City Government encounters the Taiwan Railways, it treats it as "not under the jurisdiction of the government" and pretends not to notice when it encounters "an inter-bureau office." The rotten toilets and broken guide bricks at Banqiao Station have made citizens intolerable. She asked the city government to establish an inter-bureau integration platform so that the central and local governments should no longer play ball with each other. The Environmental Protection Bureau, Health Bureau, and Water Conservancy Bureau should also intervene to conduct strong inspections of the underground streets and surrounding toilets in Banqiao Station. She requested the Taiwan Railways to collect sewage pipes as soon as possible, improve odor and environmental sanitation within a time limit, and comprehensively overhaul the service bells of barrier-free toilets to avoid security loopholes and return citizens to a safe, clean, and dignified public space.
