Metropolitan Transportation Coalition in Name Only

The Metropolitan Transportation Coalition, jointly established by three metropolitan area local governments—Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon—to build a metropolitan transportation system has been revealed to be operating in name only, failing to properly process even agenda items under discussion.

At a Gyeonggi Province audit held during the National Assembly's Construction and Transportation Committee meeting on the 16th, Rep. Park Sang-don of the Open Our Party (Cheonan-eul, South Chungcheong Province) stated, "The Metropolitan Transportation Coalition, where 48 civil servants dispatched from three metropolitan jurisdictions work and operates with an annual budget of 9.7 billion won, is essentially unable to function in interagency cooperation," and pointed out that "particularly, 91.4% of agenda items requested by Gyeonggi Province regarding bus fleet expansion, route division, and new route establishment have been rejected by Seoul City and concluded."

According to Rep. Park's data, among 184 cases of cooperation requests made from January last year through August of this year, only 53 cases—a mere 28.8%—were agreed upon, while the remaining 131 cases were all concluded without agreement.

Particularly in the case of fleet expansion, 56 out of 61 cases—92%—were not agreed upon, and for route division, 7 out of 8 cases were not agreed upon, indicating that it has essentially performed no cooperative function.

Rep. Park stated, "As the coalition, which was established to resolve metropolitan transportation issues, has been unable to discuss matters directly connected to residents' lives such as new route establishment and fleet expansion, it has essentially lost its purpose," and called for coalition reform.