Kaohsiung 399 yuan traffic monthly pass experience

It will be 30 days to use Kaohsiung’s 399 yuan traffic monthly pass. I also used the 520 yuan plan that was only sold for one month last year. This article sorts out the experience of using ultra-low-priced monthly passes in the past two months, and provides reference for those who are still on the sidelines.

Buy first and talk later, you must need

A monthly pass will change your behavior. If you don’t have a monthly pass yet, don’t use your current mobile method to infer whether you need a monthly pass or not. You will know when you use it. Buy it for a month and try it out.

Since it is all you can eat, use it as much as possible. Explore with curiosity and playfulness. In the process, you will find a more suitable method of public transportation for you. After this month you may find that you really need it. Even if you don’t continue to use it, you don’t lose anything.

Increase mobile flexibility

It’s okay to return the YouBike after riding for less than one kilometer. In the past, if you didn’t need to transfer to a bus, light rail or MRT, there was no transfer discount, and you had to pay 5 yuan for the first 30 minutes. Now it’s all free (even electric vehicles!). Therefore, it can be used anytime and anywhere, and it is good to travel hundreds of meters.

Free use of buses, light rail and MRT. In the past, you would think it was a bit wasteful to take only one station. For example, it costs 10 yuan to take one or more stations on the light rail, and the basic rate of the MRT is 17. Depending on the mileage, you can take three or four stations. Just take a stop now.

In the past, of course, I took the bus with a stop sign near my home. With YouBike, you can take a little more cars. The nearest get off station is one or two kilometers away from home. And then ride home is. This originally had a transfer discount.

Improve leisure quality

If you just take a walk in the park near your home on weekday evenings, with a monthly pass, you can simply take the MRT, light rail, or bus (see whichever is more convenient) to a more interesting and comfortable place that is not far away. For example, the port. It may cost a little more traffic time, but the value you get is hundreds of thousands of times.

Holidays too. A longer MRT journey, or a ferry, since you can take unlimited rides, of course you will take it whenever you think of it. You can go to more interesting places.

The itinerary will also be more flexible. If you ride a motorcycle, drive somewhere, you end up back in the parking lot. Parking is like anchoring and “tied” yourself. This layer of restraint is reduced by using public transportation.

If you have the habit of running, the monthly pass also makes your route more flexible. You don’t necessarily have to go back to square one. Just run to a place with a station and get a ride back. Of course it was possible in the past, but now it doesn’t cost much.

commuter trip

With a monthly pass, you will want to use it as much as possible, otherwise it will be wasted. In the past, some places where public transportation was not particularly convenient, you would feel that you could try it, which also increased the chance to explore unfamiliar corners of the city.

For example, these days I often go to Niu Chou Pu in Fengshan, which is roughly in the vicinity of the Horticultural Experimental Institute. There are few buses, and the MRT is a bit far away. I first took the MRT to Dadong Station and then rode two kilometers on YouBike to get there. After a few rides, I became familiar with it. Calculating the time is actually about the same as driving. And because of this, I noticed the original sugar railway relics and road corridors, and had a more detailed experience of the texture of Fengshan.

I went to Tainan for a meeting a few days ago. I first took the MRT to Qiaotou and then transferred to the Taiwan Railway. The mileage south of the bridgehead is on the MRT, and the range of the monthly pass is guarded. Just pay the Taiwan Railway fare between Qiaotou and Tainan. Moving from north to south in the urban area, the Taiwan Railway shuttle bus is cheaper than the MRT. But with a monthly pass, it’s the other way around. Of course not much money. But the point is that the playfulness of “making full use of the monthly pass” allowed me to experience a new way of transfer by attending the meeting.

Shorten the psychological distance

I often go to the Neiwei Art Center to watch movies. If you live in Xinxing, Lingya, or Qianjin, you may feel that Neiwei is a little far away in the past. The “far” part comes from the fare of more than 60 yuan round trip from the MRT to the light rail. Come to think of it, it costs an extra sixty yuan to see a movie. With a monthly pass, I feel a lot closer.

Neiwei is also very close to Hamaxing and Yancheng because of the light rail. Sometimes it’s time for dinner after watching a movie at the Neiwei Art Center, and I’ll jump on the light rail to Hamaxing and Yancheng for food. It feels like you are right next door.

During the holidays, I went to Hamaxing and Cijin for a walk. No problem eating snacks. But sometimes if you want to have a comfortable meal, you don’t necessarily have to stay in the local area to eat. It’s hard to find the right one among the bunch of tourist businesses. Just take a light rail back to the city to eat. If you ride a motorcycle or drive a car, you will feel tired from moving so far.

promote physical and mental health

I rarely drive anymore. When I was driving before, I felt that the metal and glass box belonged to my own space, and I thought that everything outside the box was not my race, so my heart must be different. Always complaining while driving. Driving a personal vehicle can literally make you a worse person. By taking public transportation, you will feel and integrate into the world more actively. This is my own understanding.

Here we want to talk about streetcars, that is, light rail. If the tram is running underground, everyone is looking down and swiping their phones. On streetcars, many people look out the windows. Streetcars reconnect people and cities.

Wheelchairs can easily enter and exit platforms and carriages without the assistance of elevators, lifting devices, ferry boards, steep slopes, drivers or station staff. This is also the humanistic value of streetcars. Of course, the parents pushing the stroller (or the grandparents walking the grandchildren) are more at ease.

If you take the light rail during school hours, you will often see a lot of students. The streetcar continues the social life of the students after they leave the school (the bus is relatively small and wobbly, so it is not so easy to chat on the bus), and the warm sunshine heals the hearts of the students. are unique values.

build modern value

Since the high-speed rail was opened to traffic sixteen years ago, I have traveled to many counties and cities by taking the high-speed rail to Taiwan Railway for work. What should I do after leaving the station? Local public transport rarely really works. I still try to use it as much as possible, as a game and exploration. This has also accumulated my public transportation experience and beliefs.

Another thing that changed me was the Kaohsiung MRT. I was also a person who liked to drive by myself. I only started taking the bus in Kaohsiung after the Kaohsiung MRT opened to traffic fifteen years ago. Back then the buses were really bad. But I continue to use it like this, and I have also witnessed the progress of public transportation in this city.

Private transportation, no matter whether it uses oil or electricity, is not sustainable. In this era of urgent need to practice sustainability, public transportation is not only the trend of the times, but also a correct value. The cheap monthly transportation pass is a good opportunity to make it easier for you who are used to riding motorcycles and driving to explore public transportation and establish modern value.

This also solves the problem of traffic safety. With the density of automobiles and motorcycles in Taiwan, no matter how the roads are improved, they will not be much safer. When people can choose more sustainable modes of transportation, safety is also ensured.

further reading