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President Yoon Suk-yeol at the inauguration of the first GTX line
Photo: Yonhap News / Newscom / IMAGO
In South Korea, a kind of super subway is expected to increase the birth rate. President Yoon Suk-yeol opened a first section of the 134 trillion won (92 billion euros) project in the capital Seoul on Friday. Shorter travel times will enable people to “spend more time with their families in the morning and evening,” said the head of state. The government hopes that the planned high-speed rail will encourage more young people on the outskirts of the metropolis, which has a population of almost ten million, to have children.
For the Great Train eXpress (GTX), six lines are to be built by 2035, connecting Seoul and several outlying districts. The GTX would allow young people to consider a home far from the capital without having to commute for hours, Minister Park Sang-woo told Reuters. »With a two-hour commute, how are you supposed to find time for your children on the way home? The idea is to give people more free time after work. They could use the time they would save for their families.
19 instead of 80 minutes
Many young couples in South Korea have cited long commutes and cramped, expensive apartments in the Seoul metropolitan area as key reasons for not getting married and starting a family. Half of all South Koreans live in the metropolitan region, which has the lowest birth rate in the country. The now inaugurated section of the first line is intended to shorten the travel time between the Seoul district of Suseo and the satellite city of Dongtan from the current 80 minutes by bus to 19 minutes by the new subway.
The GTX is intended to be one of the fastest subway systems in the world, with trains expected to run at top speeds of 180 km/h.
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