Amid high winds and occasional rain caused by Typhoon Muifa passing to the east of Taiwan, the Bureau of High Speed Rail (BHSR) held a ceremony yesterday to celebrate the completion of the elevated section of a new metro line that will connect Taipei with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
Construction of the 51km-long MRT Airport Line’s main structure has been finished, BHSR officials announced. Now the project enters a new stage in which the installation of electronic systems will take place.
Barring any glitches, the long-anticipated metro system will be able to start commercial services by June 2013.
Photo: CNA
The MRT Airport Line, one of the government’s 10 Major National Construction Projects, starts from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2, extends eastward to Terminal 1, and passes through townships in Taoyuan County and districts of New Taipei City (新北市), including Linkou (林口), Gueishan (龜山), Sinjhuang (新莊), Taishan (泰山) and Sanchong (三重), before entering Taipei City.
The line also reaches southward through Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station to Jhongli City (中壢).
It consists of 22 stations, of which 15 are elevated and seven are underground, with two maintenance depots. The elevated section stretches for 40km.
The Airport Line connects key transport hubs in northern Taiwan, including the Taipei Main Station, Taoyuan High-Speed Railway Station and the airport, as well as Taipei City’s metro network.
The NT$113.85 billion (US$3.9 billion) project brings together international air and domestic traffic services, BHSR said.
BHSR officials added that one of the project’s unique features is the elevated section crossing National Highway No. 1, which sports v-shaped bridge piers. The bridge, spanning 279m, enables a broad visual field for drivers on the highway, officials said, calling the flyover a landmark structure.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TAIWAN ADVOCATES: The resolution, which called for the recognition of Taiwan as a country and normalized relations, was supported by 22 Republican representatives Two US representatives on Thursday reintroduced a resolution calling for the US to end its “one China” policy, resume formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan and negotiate a bilateral Taiwan-US free trade agreement. Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th District were backed by 22 Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The two congressmen first introduced the resolution together in 2021. The resolution called on US President Donald Trump to “abandon the antiquated ‘one China’ policy in favor of a policy that recognizes the objective reality that Taiwan is an independent country, not
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)