President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday urged the incoming Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration to continue his government’s work on transportation infrastructure, adding that the new administration should also support the Suhua Highway improvement project.
Ma made the remarks at a ceremony marking the breaking through of the Kuanyin Tunnel (觀音隧道), the longest tunnel in the project.
His administration decided to upgrade the Suhua Highway after the proposed Suhua Freeway Project failed to secure approval from the Environmental Protection Administration’s environmental impact assessment committee, he said.
Photo: Chu Tse-wei, Taipei Times
The project addresses some of the bottleneck road sections, which have been limiting the highway’s capacity, he said, adding that he had seen many empty tour buses on the highway on his way to the ceremony because Chinese tourists prefer to take the railway to the east coast rather than tour buses.
That was a waste of resources, and the new government should continue improving the section between Dongao (東澳) and Nanao (南澳) townships, the last part of the project, he said.
Ma said that the east coast lags behind the west coast in the transportation infrastructure by 30 years, but the east coast’s transport system has been improving a step at a time since he took office.
The new government should consider the projects launched during his administration and not simply reject them, he said.
The Suhua Highway improvement project has already saved the government billions of New Taiwan dollars that would have been spent building the Suhua Freeway, adding that the project has greatly reduced its potential impact on the environment, he said.
Should the new government decide not to continue improving the Dongao and Nanao sections, there could be accidents in that section, he added.
The Directorate-General of Highways said the drilling of the Guanyin Tunnel took almost four years to complete, as crews had to overcome challenges caused by shattered faults, shear zones and mountains.
Crews still need to install the tunnel’s electrical system and pave the road.
The Kuanyin and Gufong tunnels are connected by a bridge of about 60m, with a combined distance of 12.6km, which makes them the second-longest tunnel in the nation after the Hsuehshan Tunnel on the Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway (Freeway No. 5).
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