During a visit to Hualien County on Sunday, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) rashly promised that a section of the controversial Suhua Freeway would be built, thus increasing the possibility that he will have to add yet another public apology to his record.
To increase the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) chances of winning the presidential election, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) manipulated this issue to the limit. Some votes for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) were cast by people resenting this manipulation by the DPP government, but now it seems Ma’s premier is handling it in the same way by promising to build the freeway.
On the current Suhua Highway, many accidents are caused by trucks that shuttle gravel back and forth between the Hualien quarries and the harbor for sea transport to western Taiwan. A truck driver can normally make four runs per day, but to make some extra money, most drivers try to squeeze in an extra run by speeding and overtaking cars illegally, thus posing a danger to all other drivers.
This problem has long been deliberately ignored by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau and Hualien County councilors. Instead, they have simply described the highway as a “dangerous road.”
However, if the transport of gravel to western Taiwan is necessary for industrial development, the government could appoint Hoping Harbor to handle these shipments. This would shorten the distance traveled and allow truck drivers to make more runs. Gravel from the quarries closer to Suao Township (蘇澳)of Ilan County could be transported to Suao Harbor.
As Ma is promoting energy savings and carbon emission reductions, such a move would set a good example. If a special lane for gravel trucks were added to the existing Suhua Highway, we could forget about the Suhua Freeway altogether, and I also believe accidents and fatalities on the highway would be drastically reduced.
Representatives of the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau have said that the construction of the Suhua Freeway would be financed by income from the nation’s freeway toll stations. If, in this day of inflation and high oil and commodity prices, toll stations can still generate the NT$200 billion needed to build a freeway through one of Taiwan’s last areas of pristine nature, then these funds could surely be put to better use elsewhere.
At a question-and-answer session with the minister of transportation and communications a few days ago, a legislator asked if the minister had said that he needed three months to consider the feasibility of this project, an exchange that was shown on Hualien television on Thursday. It seems to be more than a coincidence that the premier made his statement on Sunday.
The environmental impact committee put the last nail in the coffin of this project in April. If the government wants to build the freeway, it must start all over, and this is not something the premier can change with a rash statement during a visit to the area. If it were something he could change so easily, a lot of people would feel there is no difference between how the Ma administration and the previous Chen administration dealt with this issue.
Instead, the question is if the premier should offer yet another public apology, this time for making a decision on major transport policy in violation of administrative procedure and without support from any environmental impact assessments.
Chang Jung-pan is a lecturer at Tzu Chi University in Hualien.
Translated by Eddy Chang and Perry Svensson
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