The Train Finally Goes to the Airport!!!

In a country that has one of the fastest and most modern railway systems in the world, it took it more than a decade to get its act together to connect its fancy airport to the central train station in the center of Seoul.

I hate taking the bus.  It's about time!  Story in the AP:

SEOUL — South Korea Tuesday officially opened a railway linking its main international airport at Incheon to central Seol almost 10 years after the airport itself began operations.

The 58-km (36 mile) line linking Seoul station and the airport will start taking passengers from Wednesday, the transport ministry said.

Work on the 4.2-trillion-won (3.6 billion dollar) project began in April 2001, a month after the airport opened.

The first section between Incheon airport and Gimpo airport on the western outskirts of Seoul was completed in March 2007.

The 20.7-km section between Gimpo and Seoul station was formally opened Tuesday after a tape-cutting ceremony chaired by Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik.

Express trains will take 43 minutes and charge 13,300 won (about USD 12) while normal ones will take 10 minutes longer for a fare of 3,700 won.

The route is currently served by airport buses, which take at least one hour and charge around 15,000 won.

Railway passengers will be able to check in and deposit luggage at a terminal on the second floor of Seoul station.

A transport ministry official said delays to the airport railway were mainly due to budget problems, with more money than expected needed for tunnels or buying land.

The ministry plans to connect bullet trains with the airport railway by the end of 2012 so that passengers can travel from the southern port of Busan to Incheon airport in two hours and 40 minutes.

Incheon, which replaced Gimpo as the country's main airport, has won several international awards.

It will be cheaper and take less time to take the train than to take the bus from downtown Seoul.  Perfect!

Why Would I Want to Visit Abu Dhabi?

The only thing I really know about Abu Dhabi is that Garfield the cat was always trying to mail his chief annoyance, Nermal the cat, there.

I think they are trying to shed this reputation for being an unpleasant place to be sent to by boosting their international tourism industry.  One way to do this was the build a giant freaking theme park in the middle of the desert and construct the world's fastest roller coaster around it.

The name of the ride is Formula Rossa and it is the newest attraction at the all-new Ferrari World, the world's largest indoor theme park.  The ride has a top speed of 150 miles per hour and utilizes an aircraft carrier-like hydraulic launch system to propel trains.

You know what I say... nothing like a two hour wait in line for a twenty second ride...

Here's the vid:

When To Not Drive For Chuseok

The Chosun Ilbo was kind enough to give us the survey results to know when to avoid the roads:

Traffic congestion during Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving, which falls on Sept. 22 this year, is expected to be most serious on the morning of Sept. 21 when travelers hit expressways to travel to their hometowns, and on the afternoon of Sept. 22, when they travel back to urban areas. 

In a survey by the Korea Transport Institute for the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, 40.3 percent of respondents said they will travel to their hometowns on the morning of Sept. 21. That was followed by the morning of Chuseok (19.3 percent) and the afternoon of Sept. 21 (14.5 percent). 

Meanwhile, 36 percent of respondents said they will hit expressways to travel back to urban areas on the afternoon of Sept. 22, followed by the afternoon of Sept. 23 (29.1 percent) and the morning of Sept. 23 (15.7 percent). 

What does this mean?  It means if you have a flexible schedule at all, you should consider not traveling on the morning of September 21st or the afternoon of September 22nd.

Chuseok this year is a weird time, being a tuesday, wednesday, and thursday.  Many schools and companies are giving their employees either the monday before or the friday after the day off as well, which should alleviate a little the road jams.

This estimate is similar to traffic flow during previous Chuseok holidays, showing that traffic along nationwide expressways will not be distributed any better even though some companies take as many as nine days off for Chuseok this year. 

On the most congested days, it will likely take as many as four hours for vehicles to travel from Seoul to Daejeon, eight hours to Busan, six hours and 30 minutes to Gwangju or Mokpo, and four hours and 30 minutes to Gangneung. 

Some 81.1 respondents said they will take their own cars, followed by buses (13.6 percent), trains (4.1 percent) and airplanes (0.7 percent).

From Seoul to Gwangju it is estimated to be six and a half hours, and I know that this trip is usually around four hours.  So... an additional half hours should be expected for every hour you anticipate being on the road.

Happy Chuseok!

South Korea is 5th Worldwide in Road Fatalities

I suspected they were bad, but I am surprised that it is this bad:

Korean roads are the fifth deadly in the world, according to a survey by the International Transport Forum. 

Quoting a survey by the Paris-based forum, the U.K. Daily Mail on Wednesday said Korea ranked fifth among 33 major countries with 12 road deaths per 100,000 people. It tails Malaysia (23.8 deaths), Argentina (18.4), Greece (13.8), and Cambodia (12.6). 

The U.S. ranked seventh with 11.1 deaths and Japan tied with Switzerland at 27th with 4.5. The U.K. was the safest with a mere 3.8. 

Korea topped the list in terms of annual road fatalities per billion km driven with 20.1 deaths, followed by the Czech Republic (19.4) and Malaysia (17.7).

Something to remember with these numbers is that it is per 100,000 people, and not per 100,000 cars or drivers.  I am sure that there are more road fatalities in countries like China and India per 100,000 cars or drivers.  But larger percentages of their populations (millions of people who never leave their villages) do not have cars and are not driving at all.

Whereas, Korea has a robust automotive industry and a world class network of highways and roads.  Once a family hits middle class, they buy a car and learn how to drive it for the first time when they are in their thirties or forties.  I have no statistics to back this up, but I bet a lot of elderly people in Korea are learning to drive as their children finally earn them enough income to afford a car to drive, and those people might be a contributing growing percentage of road fatalities.

You could also blame the staggering amount of alcohol consumption in Korea or the complete lack of traffic law enforcement.  Take your pick!