After 30 Years, Guroil Station’s ‘Rail Barrier’ to Get a Footbridge Toward Gwangmyeong

For more than 30 years, residents of Gwangmyeong have had to take a long detour to reach Guroil Station, even though the station sits directly beside the city’s Cheolsan-dong. That may change with plans for a new pedestrian connection toward Gwangmyeong.

Gwangmyeong City said on September 4 that the Guroil Station transfer-center project had been included as a new Seoul metropolitan-area project in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s fourth basic plan for transfer and multimodal transfer centers, covering 2026 to 2030.

Guroil Station opened in February 1995 above the Anyangcheon River on Seoul Subway Line 1. Its entrances face only the Seoul-side Guro area, forcing Gwangmyeong residents to use the Sasung pedestrian bridge or detour along the Anyangcheon embankment. The inconvenience has been particularly severe for older people, people with disabilities and parents using strollers.

The city is pursuing a pedestrian entrance directly linking the station with Cheolsan 1-dong, along with a small transfer facility. The project carries a total cost of 14.8 billion won and targets completion in 2030. Its inclusion in the government’s longer-term national plan is expected to help Gwangmyeong secure national funding and speed up construction.

Once completed, the new passage would reduce the walking distance from the Gwangmyeong side to the station platform from 470 metres to 170 metres. The project also calls for more accessibility facilities, including elevators, easier transfers to village buses and better distribution of transport demand linked to redevelopment and reconstruction in Cheolsan and Gwangmyeong-dong.