Lawmakers criticize new allocation law decision that will delay Yellow Line until 2034
KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — Kaohsiung officials said on Sept. 16, 2025, that revisions to Taiwan’s fiscal allocation law will leave the city with the biggest shortfall in metro construction subsidies next year.
The estimated date for the completion of the Kaohsiung MRT Yellow Line was recently been extended to 2034. The Yellow Line is a much looked-forward to connection by many in Kaohsiung, as it will link with the Red and Orange MRT lines, as well to the light-rail system and a railway station. Plans for the Yellow Line, as seen in the image above, show it passing through the districts of Niaosong (鳥松), Sanmin (三民), Lingya (苓雅), Sinsing (新興), Fongshan (鳳山) and Cianjhen (前鎮) districts. This MRT line would serve over one million people, according to 2022 statements by the Kaohsiung MRT Bureau.
The issue is a new law passed by the KMT-TPP majority parliament, mandating the manner the central government is allowed to allocate funds. Kaohsiung’s share for its three lines now under construction — the Xiaogang–Linyuan line, Gangshan–Luzhu line and Yellow Line — was trimmed to roughly NT$3.5 billion, down from a Ministry of Transportation and Communications request of NT$14.77 billion. The NT$11.27 billion gap is the largest reduction among cities, according to Kaohsiung officials.
Kuomintang Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) blamed the Executive Yuan for what she described as across-the-board cuts, and said the administration failed to define which projects should be prioritized or deferred. “Cutting everything the same only highlights administrative incompetence,” she said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆), however, said the problems are due to changes pushed through by opposition parties. These changes had severely hurt Kaohsiung, he noted, and called for a bipartisan review to fix what he described as unfair distribution formulas.