Tamsui now has 185,000 people living there. Though I look around, I can almost believe it’s still a ghost city in many areas. Check the A/C units on the buildings and you’ll see most units don’t have any yet.
The development goals are for Tamsui to reach 300,000 residents, which is a huge increase. The infrastructure isn’t ready yet for such a large influx, even though the houses are there. The connecting roads aren’t finished because the new bridge hasn’t been constructed yet. I’d guess that is probably the biggest ‘bottleneck’ for growth right now. The 64 Highway runs downtown but you can’t cross the river at Tamsui Port yet.
In fact, it might be the reason that the population has fallen in the last year. The traffic along the number 2 highway from Tamsui downtown is ferocious at peak hours/days. Covid is also driving people away from using the public transport services, meaning that commuting times must be getting worse! To make matters worse, train times on the LRT are only every 30 minutes right now. Sigh!