By KHT Staff. Images via KH MRT Bureau, NextApple News.
KAOHSIUNG — Kaohsiung is studying an 18.3-kilometer MRT Green Line that would connect several of the city’s fastest-growing eastern districts, although a new report warns that passengers could wait as long as 30 years before riding it.
The preliminary route would include 19 stations across Zuoying (左營), Renwu (仁武), Niaosong (鳥松), Fongshan (鳳山) and Siaogang (小港), according to NextApple News.
However, the project remains at an early planning stage. No construction budget or opening date has been approved, and the city has not yet submitted a feasibility study to the central government.
NextApple said the proposed line could take as long as three decades to complete when feasibility studies, environmental reviews, route approval, land acquisition, detailed design and construction are considered. The 30-year figure is an estimate rather than an official city timetable.
The route shown in preliminary planning materials would begin near the proposed Purple Line’s P6 station in the Fushan area and travel through Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, the Siahai redevelopment area, and Renwu’s Baguoliao and Chengde communities.
It would then continue toward the National Museum of Indigenous Peoples, the Chengcing Lake Baseball Stadium and Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. A possible connection with the Yellow Line is shown near its planned Y3 station.
The route would continue through Fongshan, where planners have studied a station near Caojin Road with underground connections to Taiwan Railway’s Fongshan Station and the Orange Line’s O12 station.
Earlier proposals avoided central Fongshan because of the difficulty of making sharp turns through the built-up district. The latest concept uses part of a former Taiwan Sugar railway corridor to create a more workable alignment, according to NextApple.
From Fongshan, the line would travel toward Fongshan Stadium, Jhonglun Industrial Park and the Yellow Line’s planned Y20 station before continuing through the Jhongmin public housing area, the Chung Cheng Armed Forces Preparatory School and Fongding Road.
Its southern section would cross the Provincial Highway 88 corridor and terminate around the Dingjhuang, Jhong-an and Gueilin communities in Siaogang.
Planning documents identify six social-housing projects, three redevelopment areas, three high schools, two major hospitals, two sports facilities, a museum and an industrial park along the proposed corridor.
The five districts contain a combined population of approximately 850,000. That figure describes their total population, however, and should not be interpreted as a ridership forecast or the number of people living within walking distance of the proposed stations.
The new concept is considerably more ambitious than an earlier Green Line studied by the city. In 2022, the proposed route covered only 5.73 kilometers between Minzu Road and Zuoying High Speed Rail Station and included 10 stations.
City officials have since expanded the concept to address transportation gaps in eastern Kaohsiung, where large residential areas and major public facilities remain outside convenient walking distance of the existing Red and Orange lines.
A recent suggestion from City Councilor Tsai Wu-hung (蔡武宏) would extend or connect the line toward Kaohsiung International Airport and the Red Line. Such a connection would not replace the Red Line’s existing airport service, but it could give residents of eastern Kaohsiung a more direct route and reduce the need to travel through central Kaohsiung to transfer.
The MRT Bureau said the line’s final southern alignment would depend partly on the airport’s future development. Officials have also identified land near Fongding Road as a possible depot site because few sufficiently large parcels remain available along the corridor.
Neither the airport connection nor the depot location has been approved.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has said it is waiting for Kaohsiung to complete and submit the project’s feasibility study. Even if the line advances, it would still require central-government review, funding approval, and several additional planning stages before construction could begin.
For now, the Green Line is best understood as a long-term proposal rather than the city’s next confirmed MRT project.
