DORTS Newsletter: Issued by: Public Relations Room Issuance date: Jul. 13, 2003 Contact person: Ms. Tu, Shu-fen Contact TEL: 25218614 Ground Breaking Ceremony for the Elevated Section of the MRT Neihu Line on July 13, 2003 President Chen Gave Speech and Joined the Ceremony Taipei City Mayor Ma Hosted the Work Commencement Ceremony to Pray for the Smooth Project Execution The MRT Neihu Line project, the last line of the Taipei initial MRT system network, will step into the whole line construction phase. The work commencement & ground breaking ceremony for the totally 10.8km-long elevated section was held 10am today (Jul. 13, 2003) at the parking lot base of the future Neihu station (the space next to De-an department store). President Chen Shui-bien and Taipei City Mayor Ma all participated in this event. The DORTS Commissioner, Fan, Liang-xiou, stated that the said section work will be completed prior to the end of October, 2007, with the whole line work completion and revenue service start in June 2008. For the citizens in Dazhi, Neihu, Donghu and Nangang Software Park, a faster and convenient MRT system service will be available for the trip to and from the downtown. This ceremony on the morning of Jul. 13 was joined by President Chen Shui-bien, Vice Premier of the Executive Yuan – Lin, Xin-yi, the former Taipei City Mayor – Huang, Da-zhou, Taipei City Council members, legislators etc. President Chen said that in March 1996, Taipei City finally had the MRT system. When he hosted the revenue service commencement ceremony of the MRT Muzha Line as Taipei City Mayor then, he was as excited as having a new born baby. The extension of MRT service has improved the traffic of the metropolitan district, which is witnessed by the public. Moreover, the attendance of the former Taipei City Mayor – Huang, Da-zhou, also indicates that the said MRT service extension is a relay race. What Matra could not achieve was performed on our own. Now Mayor Ma leads the Taipei City government team to continue the MRT work. We are more confident in the MRT project progress. The Taipei City Mayor Ma stated that “procrastination of 8 years, with many setbacks before success” is how he feels about the MRT Neihu Line. Looking back to his first terms of office as the Mayor, he then already found that in all the administrative districts, only Neihu has no MRT system. The main reason is that most Neihu residents were opposed to build the elevated medium capacity MRT system, so the MRT work was delayed. In January 1999, he required DORTS to communicate with the Taipei City Council and the citizens ASAP regarding this issue during the inspection on DORTS. All difficulties should be resolved, and the Neihu Line should be built ASAP to benefit the citizens in Dashi, Neihu and Nangang districts. He also required DORTS to hold a series of the public explanation meetings & public hearings. Consequently, the Taipei City Council passed this case in January 2001, which enabled the commencement of the Neihu Line re-design, work contracting and construction. He expressed the gratitude towards the support of the said Council members and all the other related units. Mayor Ma also indicated that considering the convenience of the residents in the Taipei Metropolitan area and the travelers going to and from the Songshan Airport, he decided to add the Songshan Airport MRT station in front of the Songshan Airport terminal building in February 2000 to make the Airport and the Taipei Metropolitan area more competitive. This addition will enhance the advantageous position of the Airport when the future travel across the Strait begins as well. He pointed out that the Neihu Line construction is an extraordinarily difficult project. However, the superior contractors – Kung Sing Engineering Corporation (KS) as the Civil contractor and Bombardier Inc. (BT) as the E&M system contractor – give him strong confidence on this project. Ma also hopes that DORTS can exert all its strength in construction supervision to assist him in completing this critical milestone during his terms of service. According to DORTS Commissioner, Mr. Fan, the Neihu Line has three features: it is so far the MRT line of the longest planning time. As early as 1989 when the plan of the Muzha extension line was submitted to the Executive Yuan for approval, the extension route was already included the Neihu district. Secondly, it requires the highest intelligence and has the most opinions from the citizens. The last feature is that the construction sections will bring extreme difficulties in that the Neihu district lacks the road parallel with the road under construction for traffic dispersion; moreover, gigantic drainage box culverts are located along the route, and the work shall be suspended in the flood season. In addition, the E&M system work will introduce the digital train control system, which also is a challenge of the system technology integration. Commissioner Fan expected that the Civil contractor - Kung Sing Engineering Corporation - and the E&M system contractor – Bombardier – to build a first-class MRT system. Furthermore, the residents in Neihu and Nangang are also expected to support and understand the construction impact on their lives. Starting from October 2003, 25 buses will be provided to ease the traffic. The said residents are requested to make more use of the public transportation and see one another through this difficult time. The elevated section of the Neihu Line is approximately 10.8km long. The critical path for this work would be the pipe & wire removal and large box culvert dislocation along the Sec. 3 on the Kang-ning Rd. At the same time, the Neihu & Muzha Line adopts the single-system RSD operation; therefore, the Muzha Line ATC system must cooperate with the Neihu Line E&M system to retrofit, which is a really challenging project item. The Neihu Line project scope begins from the viaduct on the south-eastern side of Bei-an Rd. in front of the Zi-qiang Tunnel circle, stretching along Sec. 1, Neihu Rd. to Wen-de Rd., passing Sec. 4 & 5 of Cheng-gong Rd., Sec. 3 of Kang-ning Rd., crossing the Zhong-shan Highway and Keelung River, then going along the eastern side of Jing-mao 2nd Rd. in Nangang. It continues to turn North at Sec. 1 of Nangang Rd. to Jing-mao 1st Rd. and arrive at the Neihu Depot. This route design will adopt the elevated viaduct base and 10 elevated stations – Jiannan Rd. station, Xihu station, Gangqian station, Wende station, Neihu station, Dahu Park station, Huzhou station, Donghu station, Nangang Software Park station and Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center station – 2 BSS and 1 Depot of 7.11 hectares. CB410 tender was decided to be awarded to Kung Sing Engineering Corporation on Apr. 23, 2003, with the contract sum of NT$32,869,999,960. KS contracted four other section contracts of Taipei MRT systems (contract #206 of Danshui Line, contract #220 of Xindian Line, contract #263 of Banqiao Line and contract #255 of Nangang Line) and completed the work successfully. Currently, it is working on the CK570F contract of Xinzhuang Line. KS is fully experienced in the relevant construction. DORTS indicated that the Neihu Line project is the last route of the Taipei initial MRT system network. With the rich experiences and technology heritage and the infinite innovation during the project performance, DORTS have faith in the Neihu Line work team can build a MRT system that provides a comfortable, convenient and first-class way of travel to the Taipei City citizens with the most discretion and respect for the project without compromise of the quality, safety, progress, environment and traffic.