Installation of Entrance to Incheon Direction and Exit to Gangneung Direction
Lee Sang-il, Mayor of Yongin, "Great Achievement in Connecting City Road Network"
The construction project of Dongbaek IC (tentative name) on the Yeongdong Expressway has passed the final hurdle, and construction will begin in 2027. Once the IC is newly established, it is expected that highway accessibility to areas such as Dongbaek District will be greatly improved.
Yongin City announced on the 23rd that the road connection permit applied for last October to Korea Expressway Corporation for the construction of Dongbaek IC on the Yeongdong Expressway has been finally approved.
This project involves installing a 1.1 km-long entrance ramp toward Incheon and an exit ramp toward Gangneung in the Cheongdeok-dong area of Giheung-gu to improve the convenience of Yeongdong Expressway access for citizens around the Dongbaek District. The newly established IC will be located between Singal Junction, where the Gyeongbu and Yeongdong Expressways meet, and Maseong IC on the Yeongdong Expressway.
With the new IC, it will take only 8 minutes to travel 6.3 km from Dongbaek 3-dong Administrative Welfare Center to Singal Junction. Compared to the current detour of 13.5 km via Maseong IC, which takes 16 minutes, this will reduce both distance and travel time by half.
The city has been promoting the establishment of Dongbaek IC since 2019. Reflecting residents' proposals to install a Hi-Pass IC in this section, a public-private consultative body was formed, and city-level feasibility studies were conducted to advance the project.
The project gained momentum with the start of the 8th municipal administration. Following the feasibility evaluation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in October 2022, a feasibility study by the Korea Institute of Local Administration was conducted in March last year. In 2023, the project was included in the '2024?2028 Medium-Term Local Finance Plan,' and in March this year, it passed the local finance investment review.
Mayor Lee Sang-il of Yongin met with President Ham Jin-gyu and other senior officials at the Korea Expressway Corporation headquarters in Gimcheon, Gyeongbuk, in September last year to explain the city's major road issues, including Dongbaek IC, and requested active support from the corporation.
The Korea Expressway Corporation judged that since about 64,000 people reside in the Dongbaek, Guseong, and Eonnam areas, and with the establishment of a regular IC between Singal Junction and Maseong IC on the Yeongdong Expressway, an average of 16,371 vehicles per day would use it. They concluded that the economic feasibility and traffic impact met the requirements for IC installation and thus gave final approval for the connection.
Following the corporation's approval, the city plans to obtain the city council's consent and then sign an agreement with the Korea Expressway Corporation within this year according to the 'Guidelines on Additional Installation Standards and Operation of Expressway ICs.'
The city will pay a total project cost of approximately 113.7 billion KRW, including 2.8 billion KRW for design, 46.3 billion KRW for compensation, and 64.5 billion KRW for construction. The Korea Expressway Corporation plans to start the design this year aiming for completion in 2029 and begin full-scale construction in 2027. To expedite the IC design order, the city secured 300 million KRW in the second supplementary budget last month.
Notably, although the city initially intended to bear the entire cost of the new IC, through consultations with Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) during the metropolitan traffic measures agreement for the redevelopment project of the former police university site in Eonnam-dong, LH agreed to cover 29.5% of the IC construction costs. In monetary terms, out of the total project cost of 113.7 billion KRW, the city will bear 80.1 billion KRW, and LH will bear 33.6 billion KRW.
Mayor Lee said, "I feel rewarded that after five years of promotion, we have received final approval for the long-awaited Dongbaek IC by residents of Giheung-gu and can proceed with construction according to the city’s plan. The establishment of Dongbaek IC is also a crucial project for expanding the road network that organically connects the city’s core hubs such as the National Advanced System Semiconductor Industrial Complex and Platform City. We will focus the city’s capabilities to ensure smooth progress of the construction."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
