Taipei County might yet have its way in getting a new transit line built between Chiang Kai-shek International Airport and Taipei via the county.
"The premier has made it clear that the government will respect and take into consideration our opinions while studying the transportation project linking Taipei and the CKS airport," said Taipei County Commissioner Su Tseng-chang
Su has expressed his desire that the line be built as a transit system instead of transforming and extending an existing train line. He said that his personal interpretation of the premier's talk is that the government supports his idea.
"It seems to me that the government clearly favors a transit line because the system is fast and convenient, as requested by the premier," Su said.
Su made the remarks after meeting with Premier Yu Shyi-kun at the Executive Yuan yesterday afternoon to brief him on the county's preference.
Yu, however, tried to tone down the matter.
"I don't know the answer yet because the transportation ministry has not yet briefed me about the matter and we don't know yet who will take over the project's construction," Yu later told reporters.
The bottom line, however, is that the plan has to be well thought out and in the nation's best interest, Yu said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications could no longer allow Evertransit International Development Corp (長生國際開發) to build the 36.9km transit line between CKS airport and Taipei because it failed to secure a syndicated loan of NT$55 billion from banks before the Dec. 31 deadline, as required by the contract.
Evertransit beat out both BES Engineering Corp (
The ministry plans to draw up 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 a new line from the airport to stations of the Taiwan high-speed railway now under construction.
Meanwhile, Yu yesterday also promised Su that he would announce on Friday whether the central government would allow the county to offer preferential rental fees at one of the county's new technology parks.
In an effort to encourage businesses to set up in the Dingpu technology park in Tucheng, Taipei County, Su proposed that interested companies should be entitled to the government's preferential rental program usually applied to rentals in industrial parks.
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