South Korean President Yoon Seok-yul attends a ceremony to mark the groundbreaking of GTX-C at the Uijeongbu City Hall multipurpose gymnasium in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, Friday. Courtesy of the presidential office-Yonhap

President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Friday, "We will usher in the '30-minute commute era' with the Great Train eXpress (GTX) and push ahead with GTX-class railroads in four provincial cities." The scale of Yoon's plan to build a large-scale transportation network amounted to134 trillion won at the sixth public discussion held at Uijeongbu City Hall on the theme of 'bridging the transportation gap'. However, its funding and effectiveness are unclear. It is worrisome that the development of railroads and roads, which are the lifeblood of the country and require careful design, will be swayed by populism for the general election.

The government plans to open part of the first phase of the GTX A line within this year and start construction on the B-C line. Each line will be extended to Pyeongtaek, Chuncheon, and Asan if local governments agree to bear the costs. A second GTX line will also be built. The goal is to open the first phase of the D-E line across the capital region and the outer ring F line by 2035. With a dense rail network, the plan is to create a metropolitan economic life zone where 1.83 million people a day can travel in 30 minutes from the Seoul metropolitan area and one hour to Chungcheong and Gangwon provinces.

If this happens, the concentration of national resources and population in the metropolitan area, such as the creation of the world's largest semiconductor industrial complex, is bound to intensify. As if conscious of these criticisms, the government announced that it would introduce a regional express railroad, x-TX lines, to the provinces. However, the reality of this project is unknown as it is a private railroad in which the private sector invests more than 50 percent of the project cost.

The underground railway project announced on the same day is also ambiguous. The cost of building a new underground railway to minimize dust and noise damage is estimated to be around 50 trillion won, but the government says it will not put money into it. Private operators are expected to cover the cost with profits from above-ground development.
Except for a few sections in downtown Seoul, it is not very feasible.

In order to come up with a policy that will be implemented responsibly, there should be at least a financial plan, but even that is not visible. This kind of 'fly-by-night' policy will only fuel political hatred.