Uiwang City Holds Final Feasibility Study Report on GTX-C Uiwang Station Stop

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] Uiwang City held a final feasibility study report meeting on the 11th in the City Hall conference room regarding the stop at Uiwang Station on the Capital Region Wide-area Express Railway (GTX-C) line being pursued by the government.

The report meeting was attended by approximately 20 people, including Mayor Kim Sang-don, National Assembly Member Lee So-young, City Council Speaker Yun Mi-gyeong and city councilors, as well as professors and experts in the railway and transportation fields.

At the report meeting, Choi Jong-chul, Vice President of Daehan Consultant Co., Ltd., which conducted the feasibility study, reported that "technical feasibility for station installation has been secured by considering interchange systems and connections with existing railway lines through the GTX-C line's stop at Uiwang Station, and the operation delay caused by the additional stop at Uiwang Station was analyzed at 41 seconds, resulting in minor negative effects with no conflicts with existing lines, thus the technical conditions for the stop are sufficiently valid."

Vice President Choi further stated, "Although Uiwang Station is located outside the 5-kilometer radius inter-station influence zone of Suwon Station and Geumjeong Station, with 10 public sites and reconstruction projects spanning Uiwang, Gunpo, and Suwon scheduled to be completed in 2025, a population of 90,000 and approximately 30,000 workers are expected to move in, with steady increases in demand for Uiwang Station usage analyzed accordingly. As a result, the economic feasibility also yielded a favorable B/C ratio of 1.74 in the preliminary feasibility analysis," he said.

The greatest advantage of the Uiwang Station stop is that GTX users' walking distance can be minimized by only supplementing the existing Line 1 Gyeongbu platform and installing additional transfer gates. The construction conditions are also minimal in scale with a project period of two years and a budget of approximately 5.3 billion won, creating optimal settlement conditions without environmental damage or civil complaints. In particular, if the spare track at Uiwang Station is partially utilized as a maintenance yard for the first train departing from Suwon on the GTX, it can resolve the vehicle maintenance issues in the southern section of the line, which was reviewed as a favorable factor for the Uiwang Station stop.

Based on these results, the location is conveniently accessible not only to Uiwang residents but also to residents of adjacent Gunpo and Suwon cities, which have poor metropolitan transportation conditions. In particular, with Uiwang Station as a hub, Bugok district reconstruction and development of sites such as Wolam, Chopyeong, and Uiwang Technopark, as well as industrial park development are underway, and future usage demand is expected to steadily increase with continuous population influx.

Meanwhile, the city plans to submit the final feasibility study report to Gyeonggi Province and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and will strongly request that the consideration of an Uiwang Station stop be reflected in the GTX-C line basic design project scheduled to be completed in the second half of this year.

Mayor Kim Sang-don said, "Through the final feasibility study results, Uiwang Station and its surrounding areas, which had been outside the inter-station influence zone of metropolitan transportation in the southern Capital Region, will grow into a cluster of future transportation advanced industries by attracting GTX, along with improved transportation conditions and a fusion of nearby railway research centers and cutting-edge logistics. To this end, the city plans to launch a basic design study to improve transfer conditions at Uiwang Station and will form a practical promotion team for the GTX stop at Uiwang Station to concentrate administrative efforts. We will do our best until the station is confirmed," he said.