Taipei City Government

Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-Je attended the East District 2.0 – Sinsin Park inauguration ceremony on February 26. During his speech, he briefed everyone on the city government’s future plans for the Nangang region, and he also thanked major corporations that have decided to establish their offices here for creating a world-class sky corridor. Sinsin Park is endowed with functions including tourism, recreation, detention pond, and decreasing the urban heat island effect. The crucial green space in Nangang will also foster developments in the region.

According to Ko, he focused on the West District Gateway Project during his first term as mayor; in his second term, he shifted the city government’s emphasis to the East District Gateway Project because he believes the most significant transformations of Taipei City over the next 3 years will take place here. The city government has invested tremendous efforts in the region’s development, turning it into a transport hub. The plan to extend the High-Speed Rail (HSR) line to Yilan should go ahead as expected, while the Bannan line will also extend to Xizhi, and the Keelung light rail system will be connected at Xizhi. Consequently, Nangang is set to become a transport hub of northeastern Taiwan; in particular, with the bus station situated next to the Nangang Station, it will become the transport hub of northeastern Taiwan, where accessing regions from Yilan to Shimen will go through Nangang.

Ko elaborated that Nangang Station is a transportation center; therefore, the city government hopes to develop the biotechnology hub of northern Taiwan in this region. Currently, the development of projects such as Academia Sinica’s National Biotechnology Research Park, Taipei Bioinnovation Park, and Nangang Tunnel are underway. The MOHW, FDA, and Taipei City Government’s Department of Health will all be relocated to this neighborhood; hence, the R&D hub of northern Taiwan’s biotechnology industry will be based here, and they will be joined to the mass production site in Zhubei via HSR.

In addition, after the completion of Hall 2 of Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, the Taipei Music Center will also officially open its doors to the public in June of 2020. He mentioned that the Taipei Music Center is essential in the sense that with its opening, an influx of people can be anticipated. Looking from the aerial photo of the entire Nangang area, the building volume including the bioinnovation park, land reserved for transportation purposes, exhibition center, and Taipei Music Center will expand at a fast pace over the next 3-5 years. While planning Nangang’s development, the city government realized that the considerable increase in building volume should be balanced by an increase in green spaces. In light of this, the preservation of green spaces at the Nangang Bottle Cap Factory proved to be the correct strategic move; otherwise, there will be insufficient green space.

In the interest of creating more green space, the city government constructed the Nangang Park, Nanxing Park, Yucheng Park, and Sinsin Park – the largest of its kind. Planning of the sky corridor for the Nangang region is almost finalized to link up the entire area. From the air to the ground and from Nangang to Songshan, the overall urban plan has been designed, and they will be implemented progressively in the future. The mayor expressed his thanks to major corporations in Nangang for supporting the sky corridor program, which promises to become the world’s largest sky corridor second only to the Highline Park in New York. As a matter of fact, the city government intended to build a sky corridor in Xinyi District, but, unfortunately, due to the respective interests of businesses the area, the projects failed to be thoroughly implemented.

Of all the green spaces, the almost 2-hectare Sinsin Park is the brainchild of a renowned designer, and it is situated in a vital location. With prevailing northeasterly winds, the hills are designed in the northeast corner of the park to shield it from the wind. Other sections including the bald cypress section and aquatic plants section are designed with the concept of diversification and allocation in mind. More importantly, the city government has changed some of the urban design concepts in this area. Many existing parks consist of cement grounds, something that the newer parks are shying away from, and being replaced with permeable pavement. As a result, a pond is designed in the center of the park as the detention pond. With the pond, the climate can still be regulated despite the increased building volume, thereby preventing the heat island effect in the summer that is usually caused by a large number of buildings in the area. Ko commented that Nangang’s urban planning is superior to that of the Xinyi District, not because the city government has gotten better, but because times are changing.

The development of Nangang and Xinyi districts is separated by almost 3 decades, therefore better design concepts were implemented when devising the East District Gateway Project in Nangang; the design of the sky corridor, green space, and detention pond has improved in every aspect. Over the next 3 years, the city government will continue to execute the East District Gateway Project in a progressive manner. In the past 5 years, Nangang Station has exhibited the largest number of passengers of all MRT stations in Taipei, and its increase in passenger volume of 104% is far higher than those of the station ranked second place (30%). Statistically speaking, Nangang Station’s passenger volume has doubled over the said period. When the Nangang public housing project is completed along with the bottle cap factory and Taipei Nangang Bioinnovation Park, the figure is expected to increase more than twofold within the next half-decade. With the enormous pedestrian traffic generated by the Taipei Music Center, the future of this region is looking very promising. The city government wishes to thank the assistance of various village chiefs, and it will strive to develop Nangang by upholding a sound long-term urban planning design, making sure that it will be better than the Xinyi District.