December 23, 2018
A dedication ceremony was held for the first section of a light rail transit (LRT) system in Taiwan. This system was built to provide greater access to Danhai New Town, a large residential development of Tamsui District in New Taipei City. Danhai light rail, which is operated by New Taipei Metro Corporation (NTMC), became the first LRT system in the northern region of Taiwan. (The first LRT system to be launched anywhere in Taiwan was the Circular light rail in Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan; this network made its debut in 2015.) Construction on Danhai light rail had begun in September 2014.
Danhai light rail’s initial 4.5-mile (7.3-kilometer) segment — a portion known as the Green Mountain Line — encompasses 11 stations altogether. From the start, each of these stations was decorated with colorful sculptures that had been created by artist Jimmy Liao. Wu Kuo-chi, general manager of NTMC, made it clear that the dedication ceremony for Danhai light rail was scheduled in large part to take place between 5:00 and 6:30 p.m. so that the glow of the sunset would help highlight those public works of art.
The dedication ceremony was specifically held at Danhai light rail’s Tamsui District Office station. Eric Chu, mayor of New Taipei City, was among those on hand for this celebration. As a part of the festivities, he and several others in attendance took an inaugural ride on one of the new transit system’s trams. The following day, Danhai light rail was opened for regular service.
In November 2020, a 1.2-mile (2-kilometer) extension of Danhai light rail was formally introduced. This extension encompasses a total of three stations. Since Danhai light rail’s grand opening in 2018, several stations of this network have featured a public bicycle sharing service made possible by YouBike (also called Taipei Bike Sharing System).
Photo Credit: wctaiwan (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)
For more information on Danhai light rail, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danhai_light_rail
Transportation History 
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