"Daegu Area Phase 1 Metropolitan Railroad Opening in December... Reduced Travel Time and Transfer Availability"

Commissioning from August after construction completion in May
Minister Park Sang-woo visits Seodaegu Station site

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 2nd that the first metropolitan railway in the provincial area, the Daegu Metropolitan Area Phase 1 Railway (Gumi~Daegu~Gyeongsan), will be opened without delay in December this year.

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Park Sang-woo is announcing the major policy plans in the transportation sector reported at the "Public Discussion on Livelihood with the People" held at the Government Seoul Office Building on the 25th of last month. / Photo by Jo Yong-jun jun21@

On the morning of the same day, Minister Park Sang-woo visited Seodaegu Station to inspect the construction site of the Daegu Metropolitan Railway project and promised to open the Daegu Metropolitan Area Phase 1 Railway within the year. He also stated that trains with a maximum speed of 180 km/h, comparable to the 수도권광역급행철도 (GTX, 수도권 Metropolitan Express Railway), will be deployed to establish a transportation network linked to the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Integrated New Airport, and that railway infrastructure will be actively developed to realize a hyper-connected metropolitan economic living zone across various provincial areas nationwide.

The Daegu Metropolitan Area Phase 1 Railway is a large-scale subway project connecting Gumi, Daegu, and Gyeongsan over a total length of 61.85 km, utilizing the surplus capacity of the existing Gyeongbu Line railway to unify Daegu and the Gyeongbuk region into a single living zone. This project was included in the 2011 '2nd National Railway Network Construction Plan' and was designated as a metropolitan railway after passing the preliminary feasibility study in 2015. Since then, it has undergone basic and detailed planning procedures and is currently in the final stages of construction.

Once the Daegu Metropolitan Railway opens, commuting time for citizens using the section is expected to be reduced by more than 45 minutes. Currently, Mugunghwa trains run at an average interval of one per hour, but after the metropolitan railway opens, electric trains will operate every 15 minutes. Additionally, transfers between metropolitan railways and buses will be possible, as in Seoul, reducing transportation costs.

The Ministry plans to complete construction work including roadbed, tracks, buildings, and communication/system by May, finish pre-inspections by July, start operational testing from August, and set the opening date for the end of December.

Furthermore, to bridge the transportation gap between the 수도권 (Seoul metropolitan area) and provincial regions, the Ministry will actively build metropolitan railway infrastructure by introducing GTX-level metropolitan express railways (x-TX) in large provincial cities. In this regard, the Chungcheong metropolitan railway will be promoted as a metropolitan express railway pilot project (CTX), and the Daegu~New Airport~Uiseong Daegu-Gyeongbuk New Airport Railway will deploy 수도권 GTX-level trains and be promoted as a metropolitan express railway.

Meanwhile, Minister Park will also attend a policy discussion on development plans held in the Innovation City of Gimcheon, Gyeongbuk, on the same day. The main agenda includes linkage and coexistence plans between innovation cities and old downtown areas, as well as measures to attract excellent young talents to innovation cities.

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