Bungled airport rail project irks DPP lawmakers

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said it's studying alternatives to building a direct train line to the international airport, but lawmakers yesterday said that the stalled project is the latest example of how Taiwan is falling behind rival China.

After six years of negotiations, last week the ministry dropped a plan to have Evertransit International Development Corp (長生國際開發) build the 36.9km transit line between Chiang Kai-shek International Airport and Taipei.

The deal fell through after Evertransit failed to secure a syndicated loan of NT$55 billion from banks by the Dec. 31 deadline, as required by the ministry contract.

Securing the loan was the first of several steps needed to make the project a reality. The project requires NT$200 billion (US$5.75 billion) in financing and land acquisition.

Evertransit is a subsidiary of Ever Fortune Industrial Co (長億實業), an ailing property developer. The company beat out BES Engineering Corp (中華工程) and Shangching Corp (上慶) to obtain the priority rights to negotiate a BOT (build-operate-transfer) contract in May 1998.

But at a question-and-answer session held at the Legislative Yuan yesterday, the DDP's Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩), the KMT's Wang Yu-ting (王昱婷) and the PFP's Cheng Ching-lin (鄭金玲) criticized the government for wasting six years on the project.

Both Chiu and Cheng said that the stalled project was an embarrassment to Taiwan because China is already testing the world's first commercially operated magnetic levitation or "maglev" train. The train, which links Shanghai's Putong airport and a commercial district, was built within 21 months, following a four-month feasibility study, they said.

In response, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san (林陵三) argued that China's authoritarian system allows officials to complete projects faster -- unlike democratic Taiwan, where officials must listen to differing opinions.

"If I were the transportation minister of China, the Shanghai maglev train would have been completed in one year," Lin said. "This is the price of democracy," he added.

Although Taiwanese are proud of their democracy, many also lament the nation's fierce political squabbling, lingering corruption and the long amount of time needed to build a consensus on major projects.

Some lawmakers said that the nation's democracy was being abused.

The minister responded by promising to come up with alternative plans to the transit project by next month.

The ministry so far has two backup plans -- to transform and extend the existing Taoyuan-Linkou train line into a transit line linking CKS airport to Taipei, or to build special lines from the airport to stations of the Taiwan high-speed railway now under construction, Lin said.