by Brian Hioe

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Photo Credit: lienyuan lee/WikiCommons/CC BY 3.0

THE EXECUTIVE YUAN has announced that it has approved plans for an extension of the high-speed rail between Yilan and Taipei. The high-speed rail would run from Nangang in Taipei through Xizhi, Pingxi, Shuangxi, and Gongliao in New Taipei before entering Toucheng and Jiaosi in Yilan and ending at a new station.

It is estimated that the new extension could serve up to 27,000 passengers on weekdays and 60,000 on weekends by 2051. It would cost 352.175 billion NT to build the extension and take 11 years to be completed in 2037, though it is likely that there would be delays in construction. Travel time between Taipei and Yilan would be reduced from 90 minutes to 28 minutes.

Nevertheless, the plans for an extension have not been without controversy. That is, the plan has been criticized as a potential waste of expenditure, as well as for the fact that the plan would occur through the high-speed rail, rather than upgrading the existing rail system.

For its part, the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC) claims that upgrading the existing rail system is not possible because of capacity limits, and because this would require crossing the Feitsui Reservoir Watershed. The MOTC also claims that a number of residential demolitions would have to take place if the extension were to take place, though extending the existing rail system would cost 220 billion NT.

It is debated whether extending the high-speed rail would lower traffic congestion, with the MOTC also claiming that the project is needed to reduce unmanageable levels of congestion on highways. It is believed that the high-speed rail system will only reduce traffic from Taipei to Yilan by 5%, but it will significantly decrease the profitability of the train between Taipei and Yilan.

As such, one notes that the high-speed rail extension has been criticized by the Taiwan Railways Union, the union that represents Taiwan Railways workers. The extension of the high-speed rail would lead to 58 billion NT in losses over the next 30 years, which is 800 million NT annually, for the Taiwan Railways. It may not be surprising, then, that Taiwan Railway workers have been among the critics of the plan.

Government officials, including former Minister without Portfolio Chang Ching-sen and former Minister of Transportation and Communications Ho Chen Tan, are among those to oppose the extension of the high-speed rail. This perhaps goes to show how the extension of the high-speed rail is debated.

To this extent, the government has been criticized for a lack of transparency. Only three public meetings were held about the plans to extend the high-speed rail, with relatively little public discussion ahead of the environmental impact assessment.

For its part, one notes that the government is moving toward plans to integrate all of Taiwan into four blocks, traversable by 90 minutes on high-speed rail. As such, plans are underway to upgrade the Taiwan Railway line connecting Hualien and Taitung, as well as Taitung and Pingtung. This would be with the aim of reducing travel across Taiwan as a whole, as well as strengthening regional integration. That being said, it is probable that there will also be concerns raised about such plans regarding the expense, the time required for this to take place, as well as the potential environmental impact, particularly on Taiwan’s eastern coast. That being said, developmentalist concerns are likely to prevail.

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Brian Hioe

Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance journalist, as well as a translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018 and is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Nottingham's Taiwan Studies Programme, as well as board member of the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents' Club.

丘琦欣，創建破土的編輯之一，專於撰寫社會運動和政治的自由作家偶而亦從事翻譯工作。他自哥倫比亞大學畢業，是亞洲語言及文化科系的碩士，同時擁有紐約大學的歷史，東亞研究及英文文學三項學士學位。

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One Response

  1. Curtis Smith Reply

    The extension of the high speed rail is a useless endeavor that will trash the environment and tourism, enrich a handful of speculators, weaken the current railway system and expose government to accusations of corruption.
    People should ask if they were to ride the future high speed rail than, once arriving how will they get around after arrival? So it’s better to drive a car.
    Also consider how everyone once thought they could cash in with the Hwa-Lian freeway, but instead it proved a disaster since it allowed tourists to do Hualian in a day and return to Taipei without paying for overpriced hotels.
    The DPP government has been shooting itself in the foot over the past year with a spate of pro-corporate anti-people proposals which is alienating their loyal anti-KMT pro-DPP base. Taipei City’s DPP mayoralty candidate Puma Shen’s platform is to construct a mega-athletic complex in every city district. Clearly this is a bait & switch scam for the elites. At first it looks so healthy, but his scheme plays into the hands of Urban Renewal tycoons who will be able to expropriate entire communities without obstruction. Puma’s concept extends the previous KMT mayor Ma’s approach of promoting car use and ownership since beneath each center sports complex there will likely be a 3-4 level mega-underground parking lot for 500 cars. That will double car ownership and prove an easy , but shot-sighted opportunistic way to win votes for car spaces for cars that will certainly gridlock every roadway. Meanwhile, DDP mayority candidate Ms. Su in New Taipei City has a similar scheme to build a super sports dome in the old county her me-tooism copy of the KMT’s plan.
    And don’t forget to ask what contractors – and politicians and officials will gain from all that RC super construction?
    Sorry, there’s more – like Lai’s softball approach to the tainted oil scandal. I don’t like to play the protect-kiddy card, but the failure of President Lai to go ballistic over the negligence of contaminated cancer enhancing food oils is nauseating. Think of the millions of school children exposed to cancer through their afternoon lunches. Think of consumer anxiety over the Health Protection Bureau’s advice to vary brands of cooking oil to buy, in case one is contaminated (like Russian roulette!) and think of what people think when the health minister says that a little bit of cancer-causing material isn’t bad providing it’s beneath a certain level.
    BS! This crime should be the exception in applying the use of capital punishment. Or, nutting aside, at least government could punish offenders by seizing 10% of the offending company’s voting shares to let government members permanently sit on and monitor its board of directors.
    Then you have the foreign minister who’s likely colluding with big business to welcome waves of cheap Indian workers as obedient indentured slave labor who will boost corporate dividends and drive out the most vulnerable of Taiwan workers (think 7-11, Family Mart and McDonalds staff).
    And worst still MOFA and Lai have failed to learn from the much failed Indian labor experiments in Canada and Australia where bosses have displaced millions of citizens, especially youth, the handicapped, and senior citizens to first hire cheap exploitable Indian labor.
    Let’s conclude that the DPP in the last year before the election is doing tha same thing the Chen DDP government did in its dying last year.
    Instead of attempting to appear beyond reproach of accusations of corruption, it’s exposing itself to very questionable projects. Instead of proposing creative projects that will inspire, unite, and fire imaginations, it is putting forth proposals that echo and mimic the dregs of a worn out KMT culture.

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