Thirty years on, Daejeon tram still not fully on track as parties trade blame
Incoming DP mayor lays blame for latest delay on PPP as line first proposed back in 1996 has opening pushed back to 2030.
DAEJEON — Daejeon's Metro Line No. 2 tram is now likely to open around April 2030, about 16 months later than planned, the city said Thursday, the latest setback for a project that has been in the works for nearly 30 years.
The delay has ignited a partisan fight. The Democratic Party (DP), whose Heo Tae-jeong takes over as Daejeon mayor on July 1, sharply criticized the outgoing People Power Party (PPP) administration for the line's ongoing issues, while the PPP responded by telling the incoming mayor to focus on finishing the project rather than pointing fingers.
The tram had been due to open at the end of 2028. However, the city now expects three holdups to push that back by about 16 months in total: roughly eight months from delays in compensating landowners, another two months to bury a rail line near Seodaejeon Station and an additional six months of test runs once construction is done. Daejeon recently briefed Heo's transition committee on the revised timeline.
"Compensation for some privately-owned land near Seodaejeon Station, about 3,029 square meters (8 acres), is still under way, and even once the tram is built, a test run period is needed to check safety and technical issues," a city official said.
The proposed tram line, at 38.8 kilometers (24.1 miles), is a centerpiece for Daejeon's transit plans, with 45 stops and one depot.
The DP's Daejeon chapter called the delay "a foretold, across-the-board failure brought on by the complacent administration of [PPP] Mayor Lee Jang-woo and the city government," in a statement.
With no guarantee of whether the holdup would end in a year or stretch beyond two, the party branded it shoddy governance that had "deceived citizens" and eroded trust in the city's policymaking.
The PPP's Daejeon chapter hit back. "Rather than blaming the former mayor before you even take office, present a plan to complete the project," it said in a statement.
"The tram is not the achievement of any single mayor, but a long-cherished goal of Daejeon residents that has been proposed, revised, debated and delayed, over and over, for nearly 30 years."
The PPP accused the DP of fixating on pinning all the blame on Lee instead of finding ways to finish the line.
The tram has had a tortuous path to completion. Daejeon first pursued a second rail line in 1996. The plan cleared a preliminary feasibility review in December 2012, but as a magnetic-levitation, or maglev, line estimated at 1.37 trillion won ($899 million). That then changed when Kwon Sun-taek, who was elected mayor in 2014 on a pledge to build a tram, scrapped the maglev design. The project then remained stalled for years.
In January 2019, during Heo's earlier term as mayor, the line won an exemption from the preliminary feasibility review after the Moon Jae-in administration granted each major metropolitan area one such waiver. Officials expected smooth progress, with groundbreaking planned for the first half of 2022 and an opening slated for 2027.
Instead, decisions over construction methods dragged on, and the cost swelled from about 700 billion won to 1.5 trillion won, with roughly another 150 billion won added recently to relocate underground utilities. Ground was finally broken in December 2024, under Lee, 28 years after the government first approved the basic plan in 1996.
BY KIM BANG-HYUN [[email protected]]
