Transportation officials fended off charges by the pan-blue camp that transportation infrastructure saw little improvement during Chen's tenure, pointing to several breakthroughs in the past four years.
Earlier this month, during a speech for the inauguration ceremony of National Freeway No. 3, the nation's second north-south freeway, Premier Yu Shyi-kun highlighted the importance of transportation infrastructure in economic development as well as in reducing the distance between metropolitan and rural areas.
In his list of 15 transportation achievements, Yu cited several airports, including the recently completed Hengchun Wuliting Airport in Pingtung County, the expansion of the Chingchuankang military air base to serve as an international airport in central Taiwan, the Nankang Airport on the offshore island of Matsu, and new terminals at both the Magong Airport (馬公機場) on the outlying Penghu archipelago and the Hualien Airport.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Yu also pointed to the construction of local expressways and national freeways.
At the top of Yu's list was the launch of National Freeway No.3, closely followed by the inauguration of National Freeway No. 4, the Taichung Beltway and the Kuanyin-Tahsi expressway..
AIR TRANSPORT
In terms of air transportation, the upcoming launch of an international airport in central Taiwan as well as the completion of the Hengchun Wuliting Airport are two of the Ministry of Transportation and Communication's biggest achievements.
Civil Aeronautics Administration Director-General Billy Chang (
"The Chingchuankang International Airport in Taichung will be launched with its first international flight on Feb. 27 and will begin regular operations the following day," Chang said.
The Chungchuankang Airport had been a domestic airport, but was relocated to the Chungchuankang military air base in an effort to make it an international facility.
The airport will save travelers in central Taiwan the minimum two hours it takes to travel to the CKS International Airport in Taoyuan.
"The Chungchuankang Airport will be further expanded to become a standard, full capacity international airport," Chang said.
In addition, the Taitung Airport and Penghu's Magong Airport are now capable of handling international charter flights, according to Chang.
FREEWAY
Taiwan's freeway system has also seen significant change in the past four years, transportation officials said. According to the director general of the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau, Cheng Wen-lon (鄭文隆), the completion of National Freeway No. 3 as well as the successful drilling of the Hsuehshan Tunnel on the Taipei-Ilan Freeway are two major breakthroughs in freeway construction.
"It's taken over 16 years to complete the entire freeway. Before the freeway was built, people only had the Sun Yat-sen Freeway. During the Lunar New Year, you could expect to be in the car for hours on end," Cheng said.
The new freeway cuts the travel time from Taipei to Kaohsiung to four hours.
"The new freeway can accommodate 1.5 times more traffic than the Sun Yat-sen Freeway," said Tsai Chung-chih (
According to Tsai, National Freeway No. 3 should be able to meet the needs of freeway users for the next 10 to 20 years.
Cheng also pointed to the Hsuehshan Tunnel as a critical point in the construction of the Taipei-Ilan freeway.
"The Hsuehshan Tunnel is 12.9km long, the longest in Asia. It's taken us a decade to drill," said Cheng, who added that the geological formation of the mountain made for difficult drilling.
"Having finished drilling the tunnel, we expect to finish construction on the Taipei-Ilan freeway by next year," Cheng said.
The Taipei-Ilan freeway will reduce the time it takes to travel from Taipei County to Ilan County from two hours to just 40 minutes and is expected to boost development in eastern Taiwan.
POLITICS
Despite progress on various transportation projects during the Chen administration, officials said transportation goals take more than one term to complete.
"The length of time needed for most projects will be at least three years," Chang said.
Construction projects must go through various stages of assessment and planning before construction can even begin. According to Chang, the larger projects take at least 10 years to finish.
"You can't politicize freeway construction. It requires the efforts of so many different people and so much time. For example, about half of the construction workers for National Freeway No. 3 were not even Taiwanese," Cheng said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS