By KHT Staff KAOHSIUNG — Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said Monday that the city’s planned MRT Purple Line (捷運紫線) could move…

Six big rigs smashed into each other on National Freeway 1 Monday morning, dumping a steel coil onto the road and grinding northbound traffic to a crawl.

Officials said the red-and-white stop area and the red octagonal “stop and proceed” marking both require drivers to bring their vehicle to a complete stop, check that the intersection is safe, and only then continue. Simply slowing down is not enough, the department said.

Kaohsiung City Councilor Chang Po-yang (張博洋) said the confusion not only increases the risk of traffic violations but can also make riders hesitate or suddenly switch lanes, raising the chance of accidents. He said that under Kaohsiung’s own review process for two-stage left turns by motorcycles and slow vehicles, roads with two lanes or fewer in one direction should, in principle, not require two-stage left turns.

According to the airport, AirAsia (亞洲航空) is scheduled to launch a Kuala Lumpur-Kaohsiung-Osaka route on June 15, with seven flights per week. T’way Air (德威航空) began operating a Kaohsiung-Busan route on March 29, also with seven weekly flights. Spring Airlines (春秋航空) is scheduled to open a Kaohsiung-Ningbo route on July 4, with two flights per week.

On Songyi Road (松藝路) in Niaosong District (鳥松區), cameras record when a vehicle enters and exits a 1.3-kilometer monitored section. If the time it takes to travel through the section shows the vehicle’s average speed was over the 50-kilometer-per-hour limit, the driver can be fined.

The civic Facebook page 高雄好過日 (@takaogooday) reported that NT$150 million has been secured for the restoration of the Imperial Crown-style old station building (帝冠車站), with the Kaohsiung City Bureau of Cultural Affairs (高雄市政府文化局) expected to handle the project on behalf of Taiwan Railway Corp. The project is expected to be tendered as early as July, with restoration taking about 18 months to two years and possible completion in 2028, according to the post. The restoration funding and timeline were also reported by Yahoo News, citing local reporting.

Kaohsiung City Councilor Chang Po-yang (張博洋) pointed out that cruise passengers often have only a few hours in the city before returning to their ships. Chang said that means shops need to be easy to identify, easy to reach, and ready to serve foreign visitors.

Arrivals from Korea could reach 115,000 this year, surpassing the pre-pandemic peak of 104,000 and generating more than NT$2 billion for local shopping districts.

Local officials argue that Fongshan, Kaohsiung’s most populous district with over 350,000 residents, should be considered as a future transport hub. Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) and several Fongshan representatives previously suggested that a high-speed rail station could be integrated with the existing Taiwan Railways Fongshan Station (鳳山車站).