Chungshan Bridge awaits its fate

Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he would announce his decision by the end of this month on whether to demolish the controversial Chung-shan Bridge (中山橋) in the city's Chungshan district.

"I will make the decision after gathering views from other relevant departments such as the Cultural Affairs Bureau," he said.

Ma's comments were contrary to previously widespread speculation that he would decide the fate of the bridge after receiving a briefing yesterday on the bridge's hydraulic and structural problems from National Taiwan University's Hydraulic Research Institute and Sinotech Ltd Co.

The Hydraulic Research Institute and Sinotech, a private engineering consulting company, were both entrusted by the Taipei City Government last year to conduct scientific research on the bridge's hydraulic problems.

Through the assessment carried out by the team, the city government hoped to find out if elevating the Chungshan Bridge would reduce flooding problems, especially along the Keelung River (基隆河), which floods frequently when strong typhoons appear.

"The report given by the scholars [of the assessment team] seems rather convincing to me [in stating the necessity of demolishing the bridge] as a solution to the flooding problem," said Ma.

"But we would need to talk with the Cultural Affairs Bureau on the historic value of the bridge to decide whether it is worth preserving."

The Chungshan Bridge, constructed in 1930 by the Japanese during their occupation of Taiwan, originally served as a "pilgrimage bridge" connecting Taipei City and Chietanshan (劍潭山), where the Japanese kept their designated Shinto Temple during that period.

Controversy over demolishing the bridge has been a heated issue for more than a decade due to issues ranging from flooding, transportation and the bridge's historic value.

According to the briefing from the assessment team, demolishing the Chungshan Bridge -- though it would not affect flooding upstream along the Keelung River -- "could ease the flooding near the Chungshan Bridge with water-level decreases of up to 48cm if rainfall is 3,200cm2 per second," said Ko Chen-tai (郭振泰), one of the institute's professors involved in the research.

Yet, Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴), professor of the Civil Engineering Department at the National Taiwan University, disagreed.

Tsay, a member of the Hydraulic Research Institute who was not involved in the assessment research, said that based on separate research carried out by him and his colleagues, "demolishing the bridge would decrease the water level near the bridge by no more than 20cm.

"The reason for these different results is that the assessment team used a statistic, an incorrect number, given by the Taipei City Government as its control variable in its research," said Tsay.

Tsay explained that in the research done by his team, they used 2.9m -- a number they measured during Typhoon Nari last year -- as the highest water-level mark near the Chungshan Bridge.

"The number given by the city government was 7.7m," said Tsay. "Which apparently was an unreasonable number, because the number [2.9m] we had was taken during the biggest flood we've ever had."

Typhoon Nari, which ravaged the nation last September, wreaked havoc on the Taipei area with the worst flooding in five decades.

Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟), a DPP legislator, said that he hoped Ma would not make his decision in haste. Lai said he hoped Ma would take "the research done by Tsay and his team into consideration before deciding the fate of the Chungshan Bridge."