Motorcycles and Taiwan with Bing-yu Chiu

Today I have another topic that mostly concerns life in Asia, and especially in Taiwan: the ownership and use of motorcycles. By some metrics Taiwan has the highest level of motorcycle ownership in the world.It’s definitely something you notice when living here in Taiwan, as motorcycles not only cover the roads, but also the sidewalks. But, is it all bad? Are there any benefits to having so many people on motorcycles? And, how did it get tot be this way in the first place?Well, today on the show, I have a specialist on this topic to answer some of these questions. Dr. Bing-yu Chiu is research fellow at the Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute. He has a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, has worked as a government consultant on transportation issues, and also published articles on these topics in Taiwanese media (found here and here)This episode is a kind of follow up to an interview I conducted with Dr. Cheng Tsu-jui from National Cheng Kung University, where we discussed road safety and pedestrian issues in Taiwan.In this interview, we discuss rates of motorcycle ownership across the world, the pros and cons of motorcycle heavy societies, the relationship between national income level and motorcycle ownership, the link between public transit and motorcycles, their impact on pedestrians, and many other topics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.