Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on the 15th visited Yujin Shopping Center in Seodaemun District, where construction of the Gangbuk transverse underground expressway is being pursued. After canceling his official schedule the previous day due to a Seoul city bus strike, Oh chose this place as his first site visit after the situation was resolved.
At 2 p.m. that day, the mayor visited the elevated section of the Naebu Expressway near Yujin Shopping Center at Hong-eun Sageori to review the project direction.
In December last year, the mayor announced plans to build the "Gangbuk transverse underground city expressway," which will put 20.5 kilometers of the Naebu Expressway and Bukbu Arterial Road underground. The large-scale project would demolish about 22 kilometers of elevated road on the Naebu Expressway and Bukbu Arterial Road from Seongsan IC to Sinnae IC and build a six-lane underground roadway in both directions.
The project aims to break ground in 2030 and be completed in 2037. Once construction is finished, the existing elevated road will be removed, and surface roads and pedestrian and green spaces will be created. The plan is to reconnect the divided northern part of the city through this.
The mayor sees this project as the starting point for a major transformation of the northern part of the city. In a briefing announcing the related project last year, he said, "For 50 years, as business, industry and transportation infrastructure have concentrated in Gangnam, the northern part of the city has not received enough opportunities compared with its potential," and noted, "A fast and efficient transportation network that can rival Gangnam is urgently needed."
The most representative cases are the Naebu Expressway and the Bukbu Arterial Road. These roads have carried the traffic demand of the northern area, but roughly 130,000 vehicles a day use the Seongsan–Hawolgok section and about 90,000 use the Hawolgok–Sinnae section, causing repeated congestion during commute hours. The average speed during peak hours is only 34.5 kph. In effect, they have lost their function as arterial roads.
The mayor sees undergrounding as the solution to this situation. The total project cost is estimated at about 3.4 trillion won. The city expects to invest about 300 billion won a year for 10 years and handle it within the budget scale. Some sections are also open to private investment.
The mayor said, "Because the Naebu Expressway cuts through Yujin Shopping Center, there is not only chronic traffic congestion but also a separation between neighborhoods that prevents the area from fully leveraging its value," and added, "If we demolish the Naebu Expressway and restore Hongje Stream, the Hongje Stream area will be reborn as a truly balanced 'jik·ju·rak (work, residence and leisure)' space in transportation, economy and housing, and will emerge as a new center for the northwestern area."
As such, building the Gangbuk transverse underground expressway is one of the mayor's key initiatives. He visited the site as his first stop after the Seoul city bus strike was settled. Earlier, after final breakdowns in wage and collective bargaining talks that began on the 13th, the Seoul city bus union went on strike but reached a final agreement with management on a mediation plan for the wage and collective agreement at about 11:50 p.m. on the 14th. As a result, the general strike that lasted two days was called off, and city buses ran normally from the first departures at 4 a.m. that day.
Because of the bus strike, the mayor urgently canceled his scheduled events the previous day to check the response during the morning commute. Early on the 14th, he checked shuttle bus operations at a stop near DMC Raemian e-Pyeonhansesang in Seodaemun District. He then visited the TOPIS traffic information center and the Dasan Call Center 120 to review real-time traffic conditions and the public guidance system.