By KHT Staff. Image via KH City Govt.
KAOHSIUNG — Fongshan (鳳山) will not get a station under the current high-speed rail extension plan to Pingtung, but railway officials are evaluating whether a train staging area east of Fongshan Station could preserve room for future development.
The current plan includes a new underground Kaohsiung Station, a Pingtung station and a Pingtung rail yard, but no Fongshan stop.
That has disappointed some local officials, who have argued that Fongshan, Kaohsiung’s most populous district with over 350,000 residents, should be considered as a future transport hub. Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) and several Fongshan representatives previously suggested that a high-speed rail station could be integrated with the existing Taiwan Railways Fongshan Station (鳳山車站).
The Railway Bureau (鐵道局) said that it would be difficult because the completed TRA Fongshan Station did not reserve space for high-speed rail integration, unlike Kaohsiung Station. Adding a high-speed rail stop there would require major excavation and could involve large-scale demolition, officials said.
Hsu recently urged the bureau not to “seal off” future possibilities, saying that even if a Fongshan station cannot be built now, the extension plan should leave room for long-term development.
Railway Bureau Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said the bureau is reviewing changes to the planned high-speed rail Kaohsiung Station design to reduce land needs and limit the impact on traffic and nearby homes. That could mean adjusting the original two-platform, four-track plan and finding another site for train storage and preparation.
Yang said the bureau is evaluating possible sites east of Fongshan Station for a staging area. Hsu has raised the Fongshan station issue “many times,” Yang said, adding that the bureau has included the idea in its review of possible future development conditions.
