Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Improves Metropolitan Railroad Designation Criteria... Promoting Daegu~Gyeongbuk and Yongmun~Hongcheon Projects

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] The government has decided to remove the designation criteria for metropolitan railways that limited the project section to within a 40 km radius of the metropolitan area's regional centers in order to build a wider and faster metropolitan railway network.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 22nd that it will publicly notify the amendment to the "Enforcement Decree of the Special Act on Metropolitan Transportation Management" from the 23rd to improve the designation criteria for metropolitan railways.

The current designation criteria for metropolitan railways restrict the project section to within a 40 km radius of the metropolitan area's regional centers, which have been limited mainly to special city halls and metropolitan city halls. There have been criticisms that these criteria hinder the role and function of metropolitan railways, such as connecting various centers and forming metropolitan economic and living zones.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Land decided to first remove the current criteria that restrict the project section to within a 40 km radius of the metropolitan area's regional centers and limit the regional centers mainly to special city halls and metropolitan city halls.

In addition, for railways necessary to solve linkage transportation issues between metropolitan areas and adjacent regions, the Minister of Land will be able to designate them as metropolitan railways through deliberation by the Railway Industry Committee by introducing new criteria.

However, criteria related to the core functions of metropolitan railways, such as the rapid mass handling of daily transportation demand between two or more cities/provinces and an average speed (calculated by dividing the distance from the departure station to the terminal station by the total travel time) of 50 km/h, will be maintained. The amendment is expected to be implemented within the year after public notification and review by the Ministry of Government Legislation.

The Ministry of Land plans to designate metropolitan railways such as the Daegu~Gyeongbuk metropolitan railway and the Yongmun~Hongcheon metropolitan railway, which did not meet the designation criteria of the 4th National Railway Network Construction Plan, and proceed with project promotion procedures once the amendment is implemented.

It also expects that the improvement of designation criteria will provide an institutional foundation for discovering optimal routes for GTX (Capital Region Metropolitan Express Railway) expansion, including the extension of lines A, B, and C and the establishment of new lines D, E, and F.

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