The Keelung City Government yesterday vowed to press on with the Keelung light rail project with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) and the Taipei City Government, adding that the three agencies have reached an agreement on the importance of having the flexibility of extending the railway lines further into downtown Keelung and Taipei.
The meeting, hosted by the Keelung City Government, was convened to ease tensions between the Taipei City Government and the ministry, after the former accused the latter of planning the project without negotiating with it first and asked that the terminal station in Taipei be extended from the Nangang Exhibition Center Station to the Nangang Railway Station.
The Taipei City Government argued that the Nangang Railway Station, which serves the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) system, the High Speed Rail system and Taipei MRT System, is the center of the city’s East District Gateway Project.
Apart from the necessity of extending the railway line to Nangang Railway Station, Taipei also asked that the extension be built underground, instead of at ground-level, to avoid disrupting traffic.
However, the ministry favors building the light rail route at ground-level and has said that extending the light rail route from the Nangang Exhibition Center Station to the Nangang Railway Station — a distance of about 1km — would require an additional budget of NT$5 billion (US$165.5 million).
If the light rail system ends at the Nangang Exhibition Center, light rail commuters can easily switch to the MRT Wenhu Line (Brown Line) and Bannan Line (Blue Line), the ministry added.
Speaking after the three-way meeting yesterday, Keelung Mayor Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said that the three government agencies reaffirmed support for the light rail project and vowed to proceed with its construction.
“The Keelung light rail system would link the East District Gateway Project and the Keelung International Cruise Ship Home Port Project, which would help develop the Keelung River valley corridor and the northern Wudu area (五堵北),” he said.
Although the terminal stations of the light rail system are currently set at the TRA’s Keelung Railway Station and the Nangang Exhibition Center Station, Lin said that all three agencies agreed to make further extension of the line a common goal.
In addition to the extension to Nangang Station, Lin said they agreed to extend the light rail system from the Keelung Railway Station to the west side of Keelung Port.
The three parties are scheduled to meet again at the end of this month to discuss the possibility of including construction of two proposed extension routes in the first stage of the project, Railway Reconstruction Bureau Secretary-General Wen Tai-hsin (溫代欣) said, adding that the light rail project was designed to have the flexibility to accommodate further expansions.
The Keelung City Government’s proposed extension of the light rail route is about 700m-long and used to be a corridor for the military transport railway line, Wen said.
Land expropriation should not an issue for the proposed extensions from the Keelung Railway Station and from the Nangang Exhibition Center because most of the properties along the route are owned by the government, he added.
It would take about two-and-a-half years to build an underground route connecting the Nangang Exhibition Center and Nangang Station, as opposed to one year if the route is built at the ground level, Wen said.
Building an underground route would also be more expensive and complicated, as construction would involve removing utility lines installed along the section, he said.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe
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
RSS