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Yu delays Ilan freeway project

Bowing to pressure exerted by local environmentalists, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday announced that the Cabinet will delay the construction of the 86km freeway connecting Suao, Ilan County and Hualien County for three months, despite his pledge to kick off the NT$96.2 billion project by the end of the year.

"Although we've awarded the contract for part of the project, we won't build the freeway if the county government and county council eventually say no," Yu said.

Yu made the remark yesterday morning in response to a question by Hualien County Commissioner Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山) while Yu was inspecting an expansion project at the Hualien Airport.

The three-year expansion project, originally scheduled to be completed by March next year, is expected to be wrapped up by Jan. 15 and become operational before the Chinese New Year.

Claiming that the freeway may undermine the county's environment and that the county needs more time to map out supplementary plans, Hsieh proposed to call a regional referendum to decide the fate of the freeway.

Yu, however, said that the Cabinet did not care how the county solves the problem as long as it reaches a final decision within three months.

While the project is one of the 10 new construction projects of the Cabinet's five-year, NT$500 billion public construction package, Yu said that he did not see the incident having a negative impact on the proposal being passed in the legislature.

Yu is scheduled to speak about the construction package on the legislative floor today.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative whip Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進), however, said that the Cabinet's decision yesterday was politically motivated.

"I believe the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] is still upset about its defeat in the county commissioner by-election in August," he said.

"We'll grill the premier really hard about his change of heart tomorrow," he said.

People First Party (PFP) Spokesman Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) said that Yu owed the public an explanation about the government's policy U-turn.

"I'm very curious to know what he tells the public about reneging so easily on his own promise," he said.

Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that it is necessary to give the county time to negotiate with local environmentalists and map out supplementary measures.

"Three months is not too long. I'm afraid if we don't take care of the problem now, it might spiral into a political incident," he said.

Hsia Yue-joe (夏禹九), deputy convenor of the Huilan Dreamer's Union based in Hualien, said that three months is definitely not enough to educate the public about the controversial project.

"While the freeway will only bring more harm than good to the county, the public is kept in the dark because of insufficient information," he said.

"The project is nothing but a farce to me because the government doesn't give a damn about the county's development, but only care about their own political promises," he said.

In addition to becoming a blot on the county's unique landscape, Hsia said that the freeway is bound to exacerbate the county's traffic problems and cause more trash to be littered around.

"We thought we were obliged to tell the public about the possible negative impact the freeway may have," he said.

A poll conducted by the union two weeks ago showed that about 65 percent of the respondents approved of the project's delay. The survey also indicated that only 41 percent of the people polled said that they knew about the project.
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