Following the opening of National Highway No. 3 (the Second Northern Freeway) at the beginning of the year, an important milestone was reached in a second major transportation project-the Taipei-Ilan Expressway-when drilling of one of the main tunnels of the Hsuehshan Tunnel, the most challenging part of the project, was finally completed on March 14. During the inauguration ceremony, Premier Yu Shyi-kun declared that once the expressway is fully open for traffic by the end of next year, it will reduce driving time between Taipei and Ilan to just 30 minutes from the current two-and-a-half hours, and will greatly contribute to the economic development of Ilan and eastern Taiwan.
At 11 a.m. on March 14, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san pushed a button to trigger the explosion that completed work on the westbound tunnel of the Hsuehshan Tunnel system. Before the dust had settled, workers broke open champagne bottles and embraced each other in celebration.
The day after the westbound tunnel was completed, Premier Yu Shyi-kun led a motorcade of 40 vehicles traveling with prominent members of Ilan's industrial and business community, as well a group of journalists, from Ilan along the 12.9-kilometer tunnel. Because the tunnel is not yet open for traffic, and the lights, signs, and power-generating equipment have not been installed, it took Premier Yu's motorcade 40 minutes to traverse the tunnel, instead of the ten minutes the trip will take once it is completed.
The Taipei-Ilan Expressway is one of the largest public construction projects undertaken by the government in recent years. The 31-kilometer-long expressway starts in Nankang District in Taipei City and runs eastward past Shihting and Pinglin to Toucheng in Ilan County. The expressway will form a key link in the round-the-island highway: it will connect with the Second Northern Freeway to the west, and with Toucheng and Suao in Ilan County to the east, as well as with the future National Eastern Highway.
The Taipei-Ilan Expressway passes through rugged mountains and valleys with spectacular scenery. To keep the impact on the environment caused by the construction work to a minimum, much use was made of bridges and tunnels. The Hsuehshan Tunnel, a key link in the expressway, was the most difficult section to build.
Lin Ling-san says that Hsuehshan is the fifth longest tunnel in the world and the longest in Southeast Asia. Because of the very fragile geology of the route, after work was begun on the tunnel in 1993, its builders had to cope with faults, flooding, and cave-ins that frequently caused the loss of tunneling machinery. The engineering challenges were so daunting that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications sought the assistance of experts from more than 40 countries.
The Hsuehshan Tunnel system consists of two primary tunnels, one westbound and one eastbound. Between the two primary tunnels runs a pilot tunnel four meters in diameter.
An official from the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau (NEEB) explains that the pilot tunnel was drilled to gain an understanding of the complex geology of the Hsuehshan Tunnel route. The pilot tunnel was initially used to remove ground water and consolidate weak geological strata, and thus minimize the difficulties and hazards of the tunneling work. It will also be used for repair work and as an emergency escape tunnel after the Hsuehshan Tunnel system is opened to traffic. Drilling of the pilot tunnel was already completed in October of last year, the westbound primary tunnel was completed earlier this month, and the eastbound primary tunnel will be completed in September. As of today, 94.8% of the entire Hsuehshan Tunnel has been completed.
Responding to widespread concern about the safety of long tunnels, an NEEB official explains that because of the way the Hsuehshan Tunnel system is designed, in the event of an accident travelers would be able to escape within five minutes from one primary tunnel to the other. What made the fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel in the French Alps so deadly was that there was only a single tunnel passage. Although the victims were able to get to the emergency shelters within the tunnel, they succumbed to smoke and heat that traveled through the tunnel.
Might the tunnel collapse in the event of an earthquake? According to the NEEB, because during an earthquake the tunnel would move in tandem with the mountain range, it would actually be the safest place to be. The tunnel would only risk destruction from an earthquake if it was located in an active fault zone. Since the Hsuehshan Tunnel does not pass through an active fault zone, people have no reason to worry.
The people of Ilan, who are eagerly awaiting the completion of the Taipei-Ilan Expressway, have greeted the completion of drilling with great enthusiasm. When Premier Yu Shyi-kun's motorcade emerged from the Hsuehshan Tunnel and reached Pinglin, local people hailed him with shouts of "our dream has come true" and declared its significance as an engine of economic development. During the opening ceremony, Yu Shyi-kun announced that the Executive Yuan plans to site a fifth science-based industrial park in Ilan. Wei Che-ho, chairman of the National Science Council, said that the science park will be developed into a center of biotechnology in the rich and populous environment of the Lanyang Plain.
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