A site 350m south of the Yilan County Hall has been assessed and found to be the optimal location for a proposed high-speed rail (HSR) station, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday.
“We’ve received positive feedback from everyone on this proposal, including from Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌),” Wang said.
Work on the project is expected to begin in 2025 and be completed by 2036, he added.
Photo: Lin Ching-lun, Taipei Times
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications proposed the site as a fifth option during an information session on Nov. 17, saying that the rail line would bypass downtown Yilan.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) said at the time that the majority of Yilan residents wanted the high-speed rail station to be in downtown Yilan, but did not want the project to interfere with construction of the Yilan Railway Overpass at Yilan Station.
The ministry said the contractor would build the new high-speed rail station to have a platform for the Taiwan Railways Administration’s elevated rail, which would run between Yilan Station and Luodong Station in the south.
Another announcement on the project would be made before the end of the month, it said.
A draft plan would be reviewed by the ministry before next month, which, if approved, would go through an environmental impact assessment, Wang said.
The proposed site had the approval of Chen, Su, Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃), Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tzu-miao (林姿妙), Yilan County Council Speaker Chang Chien-jung (張建榮), Yilan City Mayor Chiang Tsung-yuan (江聰淵) and other county officials, he said.
However, the ministry was still in talks with Jiaosi Township (礁溪) officials, he added.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
HIGH-TECH DEAL: Chipmakers that expand in the US would be able to import up to 2.5 times their new capacity with no extra tariffs during an approved construction period Taiwan aims to build a “democratic” high-tech supply chain with the US and form a strategic artificial intelligence (AI) partnership under the new tariffs deal it sealed with Washington last week, Taipei’s top negotiator in the talks said yesterday. US President Donald Trump has pushed Taiwan, a major producer of semiconductors which runs a large trade surplus with the US, to invest more in the US, specifically in chips that power AI. Under the terms of the long-negotiated deal, chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) that expand US production would incur a lower tariff on semiconductors or related manufacturing
RSS