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Suhua ‘alternative road’ plan fuels further uproar

The Cabinet’s plan to build an “alternative road” connecting Ilan and Hualien caused further uproar in the legislature yesterday as a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator stressed the need for people to travel safely, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus dismissed the new project as an attempt to cover up poor government performance.

Citing National Police Agency statistics, KMT Legislator Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁), who represents constituents in Hualien, told reporters that 10,495 traffic accidents occurred on the existing Suhua Highway (蘇花公路) — the only highway connecting Suao (蘇澳) and Hualien — between 1997 and May this year.

The accidents, which left 1,046 people dead and 13,488 injured, were much worse than the accidents on the Chiang Wei-shui Freeway (No. 5) connecting Taipei and Ilan following the opening of the Hsuehshan Tunnel, with only two people injured and no deaths reported on the freeway over the past two years, he said.

“Can you believe that these situations exist in the same country?” Fu said. “What we want is a [safe] way home. It does not matter whether [the government wants to name the road] Suhua Freeway, Suhua Highway Alternative Road, Suhua Expressway or Taiwan Highway No. 9, as long as we can travel home safely.”

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) announcement on Sunday that the government planned to construct “an alternative road” to the Suhua Highway connecting Ilan’s Nanao (南澳) and Hualien’s Hoping (和平) reignited the dispute concerning the construction of the Suhua Freeway.

Environmentalists believe the new proposal is equivalent to the freeway project.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) has said twice over the past two days that the government was proposing to build only an “alternative route” of “freeway standard,” instead of the freeway, in a bid to respond to the east’s call for a safe transportation route.

Mao called the proposal an “issue of social justice,” while Environmental Protection Administration Minister Steven Shen (沈世宏) downplayed the possible environmental impact of the new project.

When approached by reporters yesterday, the premier dismissed media reports that the construction of the alternative route would begin by the end of this year, saying that the Cabinet had not officially submitted the project and that it had not yet passed the government’s environmental impact assessment.

Meanwhile, the DPP caucus accused the government of reviving the Suhua Freeway debate to deflect attention from its inability to resolve the issues of rising commodity prices and inflation.

“The government should apologize to the public for its inefficiency in resolving economic problems, and it should proceed with a program of tax refunds to help promote consumption,” DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) told a media conference at the legislature yesterday.

Yeh said that price hikes had become a serious problem, but the government had no plan on how to deal with them.

She said the price of a lunch box had risen by NT$10 since the start of the year, while the price of a bowl of noodles had increased by NT$5 and that of a tin of milk powder by NT$300.

Individuals are spending about NT$10,000 more every month because of rising utility and gasoline prices, Yeh said, adding that the public was unable to afford the soaring prices.

Yeh said the proposed public construction projects would cause more serious inflation.

DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said 2.9 million families in Taiwan now spent 80 percent of their income on living expenses, while around half of the population could only afford the basics.

DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics’ figures show wages had risen 1.66 percent between January and April, while the Consumer Price Index jumped 4.97 percent last month.

Also See: Highway, not freeway, may resolve Suhua mess
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