Traffic on Highway No. 17 in Pingtung County will soon flow uninterrupted because a new bridge will soon be completed, the -Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said.
The DGH said the Shuangyuan Bridge (雙園橋) connecting Linyuan (林園), Greater Kaohsiung, to Sinyuan (新園), Pingtung County, was an important route between the two counties.
The old Shuangyuan bridge was damaged by Typhoon -Morakot in August 2009, with about 400m completely destroyed by the flood.
“We managed to resume traffic on the old bridge by building a temporary steel bridge,” said Yu Cheng-yu (余成鈺), a section chief at the DGH’s southern engineering office.
“Then we built another new bridge nearby, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year,” Yu said.
The DGH put the cost of construction for the new bridge at NT$3.8 billion (US$125.8 million), making it the most expensive bridge to be rebuilt.
Costs were high because the entire construction involved about 3km, including the main bridge and passages leading to the bridge, it said.
To make sure the new bridge could withstand future floods, it was built with only 19 piers, down from 67.
The width of the bridge was also widened from 19m to 26m, making it possible to accommodate two fast lanes, one slow lane and a bike lane.
The DGH said northbound lanes on the bridge opened for traffic in September, adding that two-way traffic would be opened by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, the Donggang Bridge (東港橋) in Pingtung County is scheduled to be completed by August next year. Northbound lanes could be opened on Aug. 26.
The DGH said the new Donggang Bridge is also designed to withstand floods, adding that it was built with only five piers. It was also widened to 28m and was lengthened to 382m.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a