ROAD PROJECT BEGINS

The freeway widening project, slated to be completed by the end of 2012, is one of the key projects in a mega domestic economy stimulus program initiated by the Ma Ying-jeou administration.

Ma, accompanied by Vice Premier Eric Chu, MOTC Minister Mao Chih-kuo, and other relevant officials, said at the ceremony that over the past one and a half years since he took office, total government investments in public infrastructure projects have recorded an overall growth of 21 percent, in sharp contrast to negative growth registered by the preceding administration of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

During the previous eight years of rule by the DPP, public infrastructure investments by the government saw negative growth annually, which was quite detrimental to domestic economic growth, Ma said.

To address this problem, during the presidential election campaign, Vice President Vincent Siew came up with 12 major construction projects, that call for the government and private sectors to jointly invest NT$4 trillion over a period of eight years to carry out the projects to effectively bolster the island's economic development, according to Ma.

He continued that over the past 30 years of operation of the Sun Yat-sen National Expressway, the Taipei-Taoyuan section has covered the most important region of the island, where over 80 percent of the global supply of computers and motherboards are produced.

The president said that he hopes that the completion of the elevated freeway section between Wugu and Yangmei can allow northern Taiwan to keep serving as the locomotive for driving the growth and advancement of the entire nation.

MOTC officials said that after the elevated freeway section is completed, it will completely eliminate traffic congestion between Wugu and Yangmei of the Sun Yat-sen National Expressway and effectively promote the development of the planned Taoyuan aviation city.

Chen Kuo-long, a planning division chief of the National Expressway Engineering Bureau, said that after the Wugu-Yangmei elevated freeway becomes operational, some 35 percent of the traffic flow on the surface lanes of the Sun Yat-sen freeway will be switched to the elevated section.

Chen said that the MOTC hopes vehicles will use the elevated section for long-term run and take surface lanes for short-term driving, so as to alleviate the traffic jams that usually occur in the Wugu-Yangmei section of the Sun Yat-sen freeway.

The Wugu-Yangmei elevated section will have three lanes each for two-way traffic between south of the Taishan toll station and north of the lanes, in Chungli section, that can be used for airplane landing, and two lanes each for two-way travel in the remaining part of the elevated section, according to Chen.

One notable aspect is that one of the three elevated lanes between Taishan and Chungli, that is 25 kilometers long, will be exclusively for use by passenger buses, and small vehicles carrying at least three persons each. This will be the first lane of its kind ever seen on the national expressways.

In addition, there will also be sub-lanes connecting the No. 2 National Freeway to the Taoyuan International Airport and the future Taoyuan aviation city, allowing vehicles running on the elevated freeway to get on or off the No.2 freeway to the airport or aviation city.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email