The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has rejected a feasibility assessment for a Hualien-Taitung expressway tendered by the Highway Bureau, saying that the cost-benefit ratio for such a venture was not good enough for consideration.
The project was first proposed in 2017, calling for an expressway, starting in Hualien County’s Chongde Township (崇德) and ending at Taitung City, with a total length of 173km, but had been rejected for costing too much without sufficient economic returns.
The Legislative Yuan in 2019 called for a reassessment of the project, but the ministry recently said the project was financially unpromising, despite the government being more than capable of constructing the project.
Photo courtesy of the Directorate General of Highways
The project, at a rough estimate, would cost NT$361.4 billion (US$11 billion), coming short of 1:1 in terms of its cost-benefit ratio, the ministry said.
The ministry said that if such an endeavor were to be undertaken, it should be constructed in stages, beginning with the shorter and more economically viable section from Chongde to Sincheng Township (新城) in Hualien.
That section has a 1.5 inverse cost-benefit ratio and would also serve as an extension of the ministry’s project to increase the safety of the Suhua Highway, as well as relieve traffic on the Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway (Freeway No. 5), it said.
The section would also improve the efficacy of public transportation going to and coming from the Sincheng Transit Station, easing the traffic flow to and from Taroko Gorge (太魯閣), it said.
Highway Bureau Planning Division Director-General Su Hsien-chih (蘇先知) said there were many parts of the assessment report that the ministry felt were insufficient and should be revised.
The bureau aims to deliver a revised assessment report to the ministry by the end of this month at the soonest or next month at the latest, he said.
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