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🇰🇷 South Korea /Conflict & Security

Yangpyeong Launches Its Own Highway Study as Councilor Warns of “New Regional Conflict”

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Yangpyeong County Council approved 55 million won for an independent feasibility study of the Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway.
  • Councilor Kwon Su-yeon said the study should gather resident views and objective regional data, not create a competing “optimal route.”
  • Kwon warned that conflicting results from the county and the transport ministry could fuel another regional dispute over the highway.

Yangpyeong County’s decision to commission its own feasibility study for the Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway has drawn a warning that it could become the starting point for another regional conflict.

Democratic Party councilor Kwon Su-yeon said on Facebook on the 8th that the county council had approved a 55 million won supplementary budget for the study. Kwon said she opposed the allocation, but lacked enough seats to block it because council votes are decided by numbers.

Yangpyeong’s preparation of its position and Yangpyeong County creating a separate ‘optimal route’ are different matters.

· Kwon Su-yeonKwon argued that the county should represent residents’ needs rather than produce a competing highway route.

She stressed that preparing Yangpyeong’s position was different from creating a separate “optimal route.” With the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport already conducting an official national feasibility study, she said the county should communicate what residents need rather than produce another route.

Even if Yangpyeong County does not intend it, the study’s findings could become grounds for a new regional conflict over which route is right.

· Kwon Su-yeonShe warned that disagreement between the county study and the national study could deepen local divisions.

Kwon urged the county to focus the study on residents’ views and objective regional data, including living zones, traffic volumes, access to interchanges, balanced regional development and environmental impacts. She also called for advance coordination with the ministry so the analysis could inform the national study, and for full public disclosure of the experts involved, evaluation criteria, resident consultation and ministry discussions.

The highway project had moved forward after passing a preliminary feasibility review, but was halted for more than three years after controversy over a proposed change to its terminus in 2023 and allegations of preferential treatment involving then-President Yoon Suk Yeol’s in-laws. The project resumed after the Lee Jae-myung government selected a study agency. Critics now describe Yangpyeong’s separate study as a waste of public funds intended to create a justification for delays caused by political maneuvering.

The Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway belongs to the residents of Yangpyeong, not to any one region or political party.

· Kwon Su-yeonKwon called for residents to unite behind the project and its prompt construction.
About this summary

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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