The nation is planning to build Freeway No. 7 in Greater -Kaohsiung and extend Freeway No. 4 from Fongyuan (豐原) to Tanzih (潭子), according to the National Expressway Engineering Bureau.
Both projects have sparked controversy over potential damage to the environment. The extension of Freeway No. 4 was initially rejected by the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee because most of the road sections were planned for mountainous areas.
Animal welfare advocates also said that building Freeway No. 7 would disrupt the route of migratory birds near Fongshan Reservoir and Kaoping River.
Chen Hong-ren (陳宏仁), deputy director of the bureau’s planning division, said officials submitted the environmental impact report for Freeway No. 4 to the Environmental Protection Administration last month. He said the bureau had also amended the construction plan for Freeway No. 7 following proposals from environmentalists, adding that the environmental impact -assessment report would probably be submitted next month.
If everything goes as planned, the bureau would start drafting detailed plans for both freeways next year, with construction work scheduled to be completed in 2017, Chen said.
Based on the bureau’s plan, the route from Fongyuan to Tanzih would be about 11.5km long. The length of three tunnels on the route was cut to by 3.7km to reduce their environmental impact. The cost of building Freeway No. 3 is estimated at more than NT$25.2 billion.
Freeway No. 7 starts at -Kaohsiung Port and passes through Linyuan (林園), and several other districts in Greater Kaohsiung before it joins Freeway No. 10. The entire 23km route will be built on an overpass at an estimated cost of NT$54 billion.
The bureau said the construction costs for both freeways are relatively expensive because they skirt major metropolitan areas, which means land appropriation costs are higher.
In addition, the fact the Freeway No. 7 will be an overpass freeway, the need for tunnels on Freeway No. 3 also raised costs.
Once completed, Freeway No. 7 would ease the traffic on the southern end of Freeway No. 1, Chen said.
Freeway No. 4, would enable residents in Taiping (太平) and Beitun (北屯) to access Freeway No. 1 without driving through metropolitan Taichung, he added.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS