Goyang City Breaks Through "Reverse Discrimination" Barrier... Green Light for Incheon Line 2 Extension to Goyang Passing Feasibility Study

Persistent proposals for institutional reform
lead to revision of the "Operational Guidelines for Preliminary Feasibility Studies"
Application of non-capital area criteria
secures an advantageous position in balanced regional development evaluations

The likelihood that the Incheon Line 2 extension project to Goyang will pass the preliminary feasibility study has increased significantly.

Goyang Special City Hall. Provided by Goyang Special City

This is because Goyang Special City (Mayor Lee Donghwan) has continuously proposed institutional improvements to the central government, leading to a revision of the operational guidelines for preliminary feasibility studies and creating a structural turning point under which non-capital area evaluation criteria can now be applied.

On January 26, the Ministry of Economy and Finance revised the "Operational Guidelines for Preliminary Feasibility Studies." With this revision, the Incheon Line 2 extension project to Goyang will be evaluated under non-capital area criteria in the policy analysis. This is assessed as the policy outcome of Goyang City’s persistent calls to the central government and local members of the National Assembly for easing regulations on border regions and eliminating reverse discrimination.

Despite its unique status as a border region, Goyang City has been classified as an "overconcentration control zone" under the Capital Region Readjustment Planning Act, uniquely within Gyeonggi Province, and has therefore been subject to capital area criteria in preliminary feasibility studies, suffering from what is commonly referred to as "reverse discrimination."

As a result, the weight of economic feasibility assessments became excessively high, and structural limitations persisted in which policy needs such as resolving transportation alienation and promoting balanced regional development were not sufficiently reflected.

Under the revised guidelines, even for border regions, non-capital area criteria can now be applied to transportation infrastructure projects. Accordingly, conditions have been created for a more favorable evaluation in terms of policy performance and balanced regional development, moving beyond the limitations of evaluations focused mainly on economic feasibility.

The Incheon Line 2 extension project to Goyang is a metropolitan railway network project with a total length of 19.63 km, connecting Seo-gu in Incheon with Dong-gu and Seogu in Goyang, and a total project cost of approximately 2.083 trillion won. Of this, the section within Goyang City is 8.32 km, accounting for about 42% of the total, and the Korea Development Institute (KDI) is currently conducting the preliminary feasibility study.

The revised operational guidelines are scheduled to be applied immediately. As a result, the evaluation weightings are expected to be adjusted to approximately 40% for economic feasibility and about 60% for policy performance and balanced regional development. The city expects that this will enable it to demonstrate more convincingly the policy effects of alleviating transportation alienation in the northwestern part of the capital region, expanding the metropolitan transportation network, and improving conditions in border regions.

In addition, based on the revised guidelines, the city plans to strengthen its response strategy centered on policy analysis using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and to further solidify its cooperation system with related local governments and local members of the National Assembly.

An official from Goyang Special City said, "This revision of the guidelines will serve as an institutional foundation that will have a positive impact not only on the Incheon Line 2 extension project to Goyang, but also on major railway projects being promoted by Goyang City, such as the Gajwa-Siksa Line and the Daegok-Goyang City Hall-Siksa Line," adding, "We will concentrate all our administrative capacity on ensuring the swift passage of the preliminary feasibility study and the commencement of construction."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.