Kaohsiung residents will be able to enjoy a more closely knit mass rapid transit network starting tomorrow after Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) received the green light to commence operations on the Orange Line from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday morning.
Vivian Wu (吳孟嬪), junior administrator of the KRTC’s Public Affairs Department’s Media Communication Section, said operations on the east-west line would begin at 1pm tomorrow and that passengers would be granted free travel on the line through Sept. 21 — the date for the line’s official inauguration ceremony.
Visiting Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) yesterday morning, KRTC president Chang Chia-chu (張家祝) said the official inauguration date was final despite Yang’s concern that holding the ceremony on the same day as the anniversary of the 921 Earthquake might bring bad luck.
“Kaohsiung City and County are both blessed. Although [KRTC] encountered some difficulties during the construction of the line, these problems were all solved,” he said.
The 13.4km Orange Line connects the Daliao (大寮), Kaohsiung County, and the city’s Sizihwan (西子灣) district. Traveling from one end of the line to the other takes about 30 minutes.
Both the Red and Orange Lines were scheduled to begin operating on Oct. 30 last year, but cave-ins on the Orange Line had stalled progress. Then, on Aug. 21, 2005, some 300 Thai laborers working on the project rioted against poor management and the way they were treated by their brokers.
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