The government would consider building a direct railway line connecting Taipei and Yilan via the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) in New Taipei City only if the incoming Taipei City Government can provide evidence showing that the construction would not affect the water quality in the reservoir, Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said yesterday.
“Because of strong opposition from the Taipei City Government, as well as the [Environmental Protection Administration’s] Environmental Impact Assessment Committee, the government chose a route bypassing the Feitsui Reservoir. The choice has also been approved by the Executive Yuan. Based on the chosen route, we have evaluated the project’s feasibility and are getting ready to have its environmental impact assessment done,” Yeh said.
“The possibility of selecting a new route and redoing all the administrative procedures is very low, unless there is new evidence indicating that the new route will not affect the water quality in the reservoir,” he added.
Yeh made the statement during an interview with political commentator Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍), when he was asked about Taipei mayor-elect Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) proposal to build a direct railway line connecting Taipei and Yilan under the reservoir.
Ko’s comments drew heavy criticism from environmental activists. Two of Ko’s advisers on environmental protection even threatened to quit.
Yeh said that the project is very controversial and many have questioned the necessity of building such a railway.
While the direct railway line may shorten the travel time between Taipei and Yilan, Yeh said that passengers would have to spend a total of about 30 minutes in the dark because the railway line will have a few long tunnels along the way, which is unpleasant for some.
Yeh said the project would take 10 years to complete, and some people had asked whether Taiwan would still need a new railway line then, given that the nation will soon experience negative population growth due to its low birth rate.
Others said that the faster train service could hurt tourism and the environment in the east coast as the railway line would make it possible to travel back and forth within a day.
“We will decide if we should continue enforcing the project after the environmental impact review is complete,” he said.
Asked whether the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) will continue implementing the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project after Taoyuan County commissioner-elect Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said he would revisit the details of the project, Yeh said that the project would continue, but the ministry would have to postpone the launch of some of the urgent tasks.
“The county would take at least six months to one year to reconsider the size of the land that should be expropriated for the project. To us, the most urgent task is the construction of the third runway at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Because the county is in charge of expropriating the land we need to build the runway, the launch of the project would be inevitably delayed,” Yeh said.
Yeh also noted the urgency of building a Terminal 3 at the airport, adding that the passenger volume at the airport had topped 32 million by October.
The number had hit maximum service capacity when combining Terminals 1 and 2, he said.
Regarding Ko’s proposal of relocating Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Taoyuan, Yeh said that the third runway at the Taoyuan airport would take at least 15 years to build, including land expropriation, planning and trial operations.
“I am surprised that he has already thought about things that might be finished during his [Ko’s] term,” he said.
Meanwhile, Yeh said that there might still be hope for the future of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp if the Legislative Yuan approves the company’s financial restructuring plan before the end of this month.
“We will make sure that the high-speed rail will continue to operate, regardless of whether the company goes bankrupt,” he said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS