Raising the operating speed of the railway service connecting Hualien and Taitung counties to 160kph is unfeasible due to safety issues, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) said yesterday.
The ministry in the past advocated using the high-speed rail system as the core of the railway network on the west coast and using an express train system on the east coast.
The policy aimed to limit the operating time in each of the four railway sections to fewer than 90 minutes: Taipei to Kaohsiung’s Zuoying (左營), Zuoying to Taitung, Taitung to Hualien and Hualien to Taipei. That would make it possible to travel around Taiwan proper by railway in six hours.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The Chinese Nationalist Party caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) asked Chen in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee if the ministry intends to implement the policy, which had been proposed by former transportation ministers and premier.
“It was indeed our policy. However, after a thorough study, we found the policy to be unfeasible. The operating speed cannot be safely raised to 160kph,” Chen said.
The government should fulfill its pledge, Fu said.
The Railway Bureau said that it conducted the feasibility study for the eastern express railway project from September 2020 to May 2023.
“Although the project is technically feasible, after accounting for its overall economic and financial benefits, it turns out to be unfeasible,” the bureau said.
“Enforcing the project would involve upgrading the railway signaling system and eliminating railway crossings by building railway overpasses or initiating grade operation projects. We first need to undertake prudent evaluations,” the bureau said.
It said that it would instead focus on upgrading existing railway lines using heavy rail standards, optimizing the alignment of railway lines, and reinforcing railway bridges, steel railway tracks, power cables and other infrastructure.
Such improvement plans have already been incorporated into projects to electrify the railway line connecting Hualien and Taitung and building dual tracks on the line, the bureau said.
It is also studying the feasibility of realigning and building dual tracks on bottlenecks of the South Link Line (南迴線), it said.
The overall operating speed and passenger service capacity are expected to increase once these projects are completed, the bureau said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS