Goyang-si Strengthens Proactive Safety Management for Underground Road Facilities

82 Billion KRW Invested in Automatic Entry Blockade Facilities for Underpasses... 14 Sites Planned by 2025
Janghang Underpass Evacuation Facilities Established... CCTV and Floodgates to be Installed in 2nd Jayuro Tunnel Box
Proactive Disaster Preparedness through Safety Infrastructure and Pre-Inspections

Goyang Special City, Gyeonggi Province (Mayor Lee Dong-hwan) is working to enhance citizen safety by increasing the installation of automatic entry blocking facilities and establishing evacuation shelters to prevent safety accidents in underground passages in advance.

Hengsin Underpass Automatic Entry Blocking Facility. Provided by Goyang Special City

Goyang City manages 27 underground passages in the area and is promoting a project to install automatic entry blocking facilities to proactively prevent safety accidents. The automatic entry blocking facility is a device that automatically blocks vehicle entry when water inside the underground passage rises more than 10 cm due to heavy rain, preventing accidents.

Goyang Special City is first installing automatic entry blocking facilities at 14 underground passages located within a shortest distance of 500 meters from the nearby river boundaries. The project requires a total budget of 8.2 billion KRW, including 4.1 billion KRW in national subsidies.

Previously, automatic entry blocking facilities were installed at Janghang Underground Passage in 2022 and Wondang Underground Passage in 2023. This year, about 4.3 billion KRW was invested to install automatic entry blocking facilities at six locations including Gangmae, Haengsin, Seooreung-ro, Sinwon, Tanhyeon, and Ilsan Underground Passages, and inspections are currently underway.

For the remaining six locations including Naegok Underground Passage, the city plans to actively promote the project with a secured budget of 3.9 billion KRW aiming for completion by 2025. The automatic entry blocking facilities are expected to greatly help prevent safety accidents caused by flooding in underground passages due to heavy rain.

Seooreung Underpass Automatic Entry Blocking Facility. Provided by Goyang Special City

Since the flooding accident at Osong Underground Passage in July last year, the city has been focusing on improving the environment to ensure the safety of underground passage users.

Goyang Special City started construction of evacuation shelters at Janghang Underground Passage on the 9th. This facility installs four rows of handrails on the walls of the underground passage at 1-meter intervals to help citizens safely escape in case of flooding.

The city is benchmarking other local governments to plan and design optimal facilities for disaster evacuation and is currently carrying out the construction. The evacuation shelter at Janghang Underground Passage received 300 million KRW in national funding and is scheduled to be completed within this year.

Pungsan Underpass with replaced expansion joints, repaved road, and improved lighting. Provided by Goyang Special City

The Second Jayuro, a highway connecting Deogeun-dong in Deogyang-gu, Goyang City, and Sannam-dong in Paju City, was completed in 2011 with 29 box culverts installed to solve issues such as disconnection of existing residential areas.

Among them, three box culverts maintained and managed by Goyang City are habitual flooding areas during heavy rain, and one of the box culverts was flooded in July, causing inconvenience to residents and safety risks.

To respond quickly to safety accidents, the city secured a budget of 30 million KRW in the 2025 main budget to install two rotating CCTV cameras and floodgates at the entrances of the three box culverts on the Second Jayuro. The construction is scheduled to be completed by May next year before the rainy season.

Lee Dong-hwan, Mayor of Goyang Special City, inspecting the flood damage prevention project site in Tanhyeon-dong last July. Provided by Goyang Special City

In addition, the city is doing its best to prevent safety accidents in underground passages by completing replacement of expansion joints, road repaving, and lighting improvement works in October to preserve the function and improve the safety of Pungsan Underground Passage.

Lee Dong-hwan, Mayor of Goyang Special City, said, “Due to climate change, sudden heavy rain, snow, and other disasters can occur anytime and anywhere. We will identify risk factors and systematically maintain facilities to promote thorough safety management without gaps.”