Fri, Sep 17, 2004 page1

• Hsuehshan tunnel opening completed

  `SMOOTH RIDE' Building the world's fifth longest tunnel was an arduous task, the president said, but hard work and the dedication of workers made it possible

  • By Wang Hsiao-wen / STAFF REPORTER
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  Amid a shower of confetti and roaring cheers, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) pressed a button blasting open the final portion of the Hsuehshan Tunnel in a ceremony yesterday in Toucheng, Ilan County, marking the creation of the world's fifth longest tunnel.

  "The breakthrough of the Hsuehshan Tunnel has made its mark in the history of Taiwan," the president said. "In the past, we overcome both bureaucratic and geological difficulties to push this project forward. Thirteen years of arduous work have made a smooth tunnel ride of thirteen minutes possible."

  

  Engineers ride a locomotive through the Hsuehshan Tunnel to mark its completion yesterday. The tunnel is part of the Taipei-Ilan Freeway construction project.

  PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUI, TAIPEI TIMES

  The 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel, the centerpiece of the NT$60.1 billion Taipei-Ilan Freeway, will facilitate transportation between Taipei and Ilan, into which the burgeoning Taipei metropolitan area has expanded.

  When completed by the end of next year, the 31km Taipei-Ilan Freeway will cut the three-hour slog on the heavily trafficked Peiyi Highway to a mere thirty-minute trip, linking the nation's prosperous western half with the less developed eastern half.

  "Together with the Northern Area Second Freeway and the High Speed Railway, the Taipei-Ilan Freeway will balance regional developments and furnish people with a convenient and fast means of transportation. In the next few years, people will be able to go to Kaoshiung in the morning and return home to Ilan in the evening," the president said.

  The president also said that the successful tunneling confirmed his appointment of Premier Yu Shyi-kun as a wise decision.

  "Premier Yu has proved himself capable of carrying out this grand project on schedule and has demonstrated our government's increased efficiency," Chen said.

  "Before 2001, only 50 percent of this project was completed. In the past three years, however, we finished the remaining half," Minister of Transportation and Communication Lin Ling-san (林陵三) said in his opening address.

  "The government is six times more efficient than before. We have come a long way after all these years," Li said, highlighting the geologic difficulty in tunneling and the drilling team's frustration having faced massive gushes of water and numerous collapses.

  Yu, a native of Ilan, said that Ilan residents' biggest dream had been fulfilled by the Chen administration.

  "The freeway will fuel Ilan's economy, as we promised," Yu said at the ceremony.

  With the upcoming legislative elections and next year's county commissioner elections in mind, Yu reminded the audience and the media of several projects completed by the Chen administration.

  "Apart from the National Ilan University, established last year, and the National Center for Traditional Arts founded in 2002, the people in Ilan will soon benefit from the Hsinchu Industrial Park," Yu said, hinting that several renowned high-tech sector firms have already set their sights on the county.

  In addition to boasting of the central government's resolve and boosting Ilan's potential for development, Yu also took his time on the podium to defend the cost of the ceremony, which had been heavily criticized by local media.

  Earlier this month, Chinese newspapers reported that the government had lavished more than NT$2 million on the five opening ceremonies since last May. The muddy, rocky construction site had become a stage for political stunts, an article in the United Daily News asserted.

  The criticism prompted Yu to fire back at the media and the Control Yuan, which reportedly probed the ceremony's cost.

  "If they really want to investigate something, they should look into why the NT$60 billion budget for this project was delayed for more than seven years," he demanded.

  "They should look into how much money was wasted during delays under the watch of former premier Yu Kuo-hwa (俞國華) and Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村)," Yu told the audience.

  "The significance of a ceremony like this is not to flaunt political leadership. Rather, a ceremony serves as an act of gratitude and homage to the hard-working construction team," the premier added.

  Yu explained that the construction of the Hsuehshan Tunnel was a highly complicated project. The project, Yu enumerated, included the westbound and eastbound tunnels, the pilot tunnel, the vehicular passages every 1400m and pedestrian links every 300m.

  Yu made another promise in his speech, slating the completion of the tunnel's civil engineering in April next year.

  Despite the advance of an already tight schedule in order to please Ilan residents, some workers warned that such feel-good promises may overwork the construction team -- ?but? said they'd work their hardest.

  "We will do our best to keep abreast of the completion date set by our superiors," said Winson Chang (張文成), the director of the third district project office of Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau, who oversees the construction of the Taipei-Ilan Freeway.

  Though not frowning at the deadline set by Yu, Chang was unmoved by the outpouring of congratulations at the ceremony.

  "There is more to be done," he told the Taipei Times, as he thumbed through the staff lists and project papers in his hands.
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