The Freeway No. 7 project is to go into a second-phase review process, despite a previous Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) meeting suggesting otherwise, the EIA General Assembly concluded yesterday.
An EIA specialist meeting late last month suggested the project, proposed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, to build a 23km stretch of freeway from the Renwu (仁武) interchange to Kaohsiung Harbor, was inappropriate.
Environmental groups criticized the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) for allegedly altering the meeting’s conclusions by adding the option of having it “go for a second phase EIA review” — an accusation the agency denied.
At the EIA General Assembly, the convener of the previous meeting of environmental specialists said that they were concerned about the negative impact from air and noise pollution on nearby residents, damage to the landscape and to the habitat of birds of prey, while also raising questions about whether the project would improve traffic congestion on National Freeway No. 1.
However, National Freeway Bureau Director-General Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁) said that the freeway project is important for access to Kaohsiung Harbor as National Freeway No. 1 has reached its capacity and will need the new stretch to disperse traffic flow. The project would not necessarily cause significant negative impact to the environment, he added.
Kaohsiung Civil Servant Citizen Watch member Lee Chung-chi (李重志) said that there is no way to estimate the amount of traffic relief the new freeway project would produce, because the operating model of the planned “free economic pilot zone” is still unclear and that spending an average of more than NT$2.6 billion per kilometer of freeway is too expensive.
Frank Yang (楊俊朗), a researcher with Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan, said the freeway would cause air and noise pollution, as it plans to cut through Fengshan (鳳山) — one of the very few green spaces in Greater Kaohsiung.
Following a vote, the EIA General Assembly concluded the case would go forward for a second-phase review process.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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