The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday finalized route for a Taiwan High Speed Rail line to Yilan County, which avoids the Feitsui Water Reservoir’s (翡翠水庫) watershed, a source within the ministry said.
The ministry originally had three proposals for the Taipei-Yilan section of the railway, two of which were shorter, but crossed the watershed, while the ministry-proposed route, although longer, completely avoids it.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) approved the ministry’s decision yesterday after being briefed on the issue at a meeting and is expected to announce the plan in Yilan in the coming days.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
While the chosen route is the most expensive option, transport time would be slower by only 30 seconds to 1 minute, the source said.
It ultimately decided that ensuring a clean water supply for the residents of the greater Taipei area superseded any other consideration, the source added.
The high-speed rail line would increase transport capacity between Taipei and Yilan, and decrease the number of people who would otherwise drive or use the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) services, the source said.
It would provide travelers with an additional travel option to eastern Taiwan, while addressing a lack of sufficient transport capacity between New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林) and Keelung City’s Qidu District (七堵), the source added.
The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) suggested at yesterday’s meeting that the planned line cross near Taiwan’s northeastern coast.
Hou suggested that the ministry consider the option of the new line sharing the TRA’s Pingsi Station (平溪), as this would benefit local development.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that the plans would undergo some adjustments as a result of yesterday’s decision, adding that the planned Minsheng-Xizhi mass rapid transit line, which has passed its environmental impact assessment, would also need adjustments to its planned route, the newspaper said.
Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tzu-miao (林姿妙) said that the ministry’s decision to circumvent the reservoir’s watershed is to be applauded, as it would minimize the environmental impact.
Lin Tzu-miao said that she hopes the project would be expedited to address Yilan’s relative isolation due to its location.
Yilan Mayor Chiang Tsung-yuan (江聰淵) said that the ministry’s decision faces a significant obstacle — the environmental impact assessment — and the route’s extra length could lead to delays in the project.
Citing as an example the 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel (雪山隧道), which took many years to construct, Chiang said that he hopes the selected route, which would require 11.4km of tunneling and path construction, would not take more than 10 years to build.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS