President Lee wants to bring Koreans within 90 minutes of one another… and he’ll use high-speed rail to do it:
High-speed rail networks will be expanded to connect major cities, and travel time within 95 percent of Korea will be reduced to two hours or less by 2020, the government announced yesterday.
Korea Train Express (KTX) will run on many more lines, and conventional trains will be enhanced to run at a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour). KTX will be connected to Incheon International Airport in 2012.
[...]
“Roads have reached their limits, and it’s time to utilize railroads to make the whole country fall into an hour and a half travel zone,” said President Lee Myung-bak in a meeting held at Korea Railroad Research Institute in Uiwang, Gyeonggi. “This will not only create economic advantages but also provide us with a grand strategy to stay competitive for the upcoming era of green growth and to address the issue of climate change.
Hey, they don’t call him “The Bulldozer” for nothing!
As a big fan of railway travel, I find the idea intriguing, but you do have to wonder whether by 2020 there will even a single mountain in Korea without a railroad tunnel running through it.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
President Lee is ahead of the game:
high-speed trains are THE intercity transportation system of the future.
90 minutes to get there, and yet light years difference in culture.
It would be nice to make anywhere in the country a weekend trip (oh wait, it already is), but at what cost? Given no issues with time, the Mugunghwa seats are still far more comfortable than KTX or KTX II.
Trains are worthless. I want parallel canals running from Seoul the East Sea! Waterways are the only way to solve anything in Korea.
Great idea and I hope it gets done for Korea.
“Given no issues with time, the Mugunghwa seats are still far more comfortable than KTX or KTX II.”
Perhaps. I do (did) have issues with the people draped over the seats that did not have sitting tickets. Going to the washroom was inevitably not fun either in that it was almost a guarantee that there would be somebody in your seat pretending to be asleep when you got back.
This information may be a little dated in that I have not taken the circus on rails aka Mugunghwa since 2002.
“…the circus on rails aka Mugunghwa since 2002.”
Yeah.
I love trains, but I haven’t yet been on the KTX. Mugunghwa-ho from Seoul to Daegu once, and yeah, it was interesting. Daegu to Masan once, too: very scenic.
The cheapest and often most convenient way of getting anywhere in the country is still by highway bus…as long as (a) the headrests, floors, and curtains aren’t grimy, and (b) you don’t take too long dawdling at the meal stops!
“…aren’t toogrimy…”
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