Will the Name of the 13-Year-Old 'Seoul Oegwak Sunhwan Expressway' Change?

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Online Survey Results Show 88.4% Positive Responses to Name Change

Seoul Ring Expressway

[Asia Economy (Uijeongbu) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] The renaming project by Gyeonggi Province to change the Seoul Ring Expressway to the Capital Region Circular Expressway is expected to gain momentum.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 19th that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport conducted an online survey of 1,000 expressway users residing in the metropolitan area from January to February this year as part of a research project on revising the Seoul Ring Expressway route name. The survey showed that more than half, 50.7%, responded that "it is okay to change the name."

Additionally, 37.7% expressed the opinion that "it does not matter if the name is changed." This means that 88.4% of respondents showed a positive reaction to the name change. On the other hand, only 11.2% answered that they opposed the name change.

The Seoul Ring Expressway is a total of 128 km, 8-lane expressway running through three metropolitan governments?Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon?and 20 basic local governments. Since its opening in 2007, there has been continuous controversy over the appropriateness of its name.

In particular, Gyeonggi Province, the largest metropolitan government in South Korea with a population of 13.67 million and a Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) of 474 trillion won, has been reviewing the renaming project, arguing that the current name creates a mistaken perception that it is merely the outskirts or suburbs of Seoul.

Since the inauguration of Governor Lee Jae-myung in 2018, the province obtained consent from all local governments along the route over two years and officially requested the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to change the name in June last year.

In response, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has been conducting the "Study on Activation Measures for Expressway Route Numbers" since October last year to establish principles and standards for the creation and revision of expressway route names, investigate cases, and estimate ripple effects and costs. The name change is expected to proceed through future consultations with related agencies and review by the Road Policy Deliberation Committee.

A provincial official emphasized, "Renaming the Capital Region Circular Expressway is the first step away from Seoul-centric thinking toward balanced national development," adding, "We will continue to actively strive to correct unreasonable and incorrect systems and procedures one by one to create a fair society."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.