The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) on Thursday approved plans for the Tainan MRT, which is slated to start construction in 2026 and commence operations in 2031.
The ministry’s committee convened to review the initial phase of the Tainan MRT Blue Line — which would connect the city’s railway network and technology park — and approved the MRT system design, cost, route, evacuation planning and other details, the Tainan Bureau of Transportation said, adding that the Tainan City Government would revise the plans and submit a final proposal to the ministry, which it then would submit to the Executive Yuan for further assessment.
The Blue Line would be a cornerstone of the city’s MRT network, with future lines connecting key areas, bolstering Tainan’s status as a technological hub, Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan Style Facebook group
It is to span 8.93km and traverse Yongkang (永康), East (東區) and Rende (仁德) districts, featuring 10 stations and a maintenance facility, Bureau Director-General Wang Ming-te (王銘德) said, adding that the project also passed a review by a Ministry of Environment task force on Feb. 23.
He also said that the ministry plans to hold a review meeting to discuss the future development of the Dark Green, Red and Green lines in the city, aiming to enhance Tainan’s MRT infrastructure.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS