A New Era in Transportation:National Highway No. 3 Completed

The second expressway through Tai- wan's western "corridor"-National Highway No. 3-has been completed. On January 11 it was formally opened in its entirety. Running from the island's head at Keelung to its tail in Pingtung, Taiwan has a new major transportation artery. Apart from alleviating the holiday crush during Chinese New Year's, expressway transportation will be extended to Pingtung, and through a variety of connectors the expressway network will link all of western Taiwan's principal cities and towns. It truly marks the dawning of a new era for western Taiwan.

Known as "the second freeway," National Highway No. 3 had a 17-year history before completion. With a north-south axis, its main branch starts at Keelung and ends at Linpien in Pingtung for a total length of 518 kilometers. All told it cost NT$458 billion, making it the largest public works project in Taiwan over the last several decades.

Taiwan's first expressway, the Sun Yat-sen Freeway, opened in 1978. From its northern end in Keelung it stretched for 373 kilometers south to Kaohsiung's Fengshan, and introduced people in Taiwan to the convenience of high-speed roads. But quickly it became rather inconvenient to use, with serious traffic jams during holidays.

Construction started on National Highway No. 3 in 1987. Now finished, it ranges from four to eight lanes wide and has 250% of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway's carrying capacity.

At the opening ceremony in Changhua, ROC president and master of ceremonies Chen Shui-bian remarked that the Sun Yat-sen Freeway represented the island's first transportation revolution. Now the opening of National Highway No. 3, in conjunction with the 12 high-speed east-west connectors and the main branch of the Western Coastal Expressway construction projects, as well as the high-speed railway (scheduled to open at the end of 2005), will turn the entire western corridor into a single living area and thus constitute nothing short of a second transportation revolution. The government is also planning for a Su-ao to Hualien expressway, as well as expressways in Ilan and Nantou Counties, which will serve as the foundation for Taiwan's third transportation revolution in which the expressway network will move from meeting industry's needs to raising the quality of leisure enjoyed by the nation's citizens.

The completion of National Highway No. 3 bears witness to tremendous changes in Taiwan. During the period of its construction, the island experienced rapid economic, social and political changes, and the heroes who built the road had to face a host of challenges, including waves of citizens' protests, meddling from elected officials and organized crime, and investigations by judicial agencies, as well as natural disasters such as the 921 earthquake. The difficulties of construction included record-setting bridges, tunnels and challenges of all kinds.

Chen Chen-chuan, professor of civil engineering at National Taiwan University, points out that whereas the Sun Yat-sen Freeway was largely built on the western plain of Taiwan using earthen embankments, National Highway No. 3 winds through the mountains and along the shore, following the contours of the land, so that bridges had to be constructed for 40% of its length, making for engineering challenges that far surpassed those of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway. To carry out the project, the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau had to introduce various automated engineering technologies for the building of bridges and tunnels, thus helping Taiwan's technology in these areas to reach the highest of global standards.

After the western Taiwan high-speed transportation network is established, the future will bring construction projects for eastern, central and southern Taiwan where the terrain presents even greater difficulties; and it can be predicted that the transportation, economic and environmental challenges will be greater, so that society will have greater expectations and exert more supervision. With the legacy of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway and National Highway No. 3 and the constant goal of development, Taiwan has taken an important step forward in the field of civil engineering by applying more advanced technologies, placing greater weight on environmental conservation and scenic preservation, and aiming to raise not only transportation efficiency but also the quality of life.