TAIPEI City Government has been promised NT$40bn to fund construction of two more metro lines over the next five years. The funding deal was announced by Premier Yu Shyi-Kun on July 3 during a meeting with the capital's Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou.
Metro builder DORTS is now working on three projects - the southwestern extension of the Blue line to Fuchung and Tunchen, the Orange line to Hsinchuang in the west and Luchou in the northwest, and the Neihu line extension of the automated Mucha line in the northeast. The government grant is intended to fund two more east-west projects now at the planning stage. The 6·2 km Hsinyi line would see the Red line continued east from Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall to Chungchiang Park, paralleling the eastern part of the Blue line. The 8·5 km Sungshan line will form an extension of the Green line north from Hsimen and then east to an interchange with TRA suburban services at Sungshan, connecting with the Red line at Chungshan and the Mucha line at Nanking East Road.
The money will come from an NT$300m budget allocated by the Ministry of Transportation & Communications for five metro lines along the Taipei - Kaohsiung high speed line over the next three years. Other schemes in the package include the planned express metro to CKS International Airport (RG 7.03 p418) and a 14 km eastern extension of the Kaohsiung metro to Pin Tung (MR 02 p43).
