Three Innovations of Subway Line 9: Financing, Speed Competitiveness and Social Equity

Seoul Subway, which started with a full-scale economic development plan in the 1960s, took the form of a public transportation network in the early 1990s through the first subway construction of lines 1, 2, 3, and 4 and the second subway construction of lines 5-8; its transport share reached about 32%. However, with the continuous population growth and increase in demand for subway use in a positive way, there were discussions regarding a third subway construction of lines 9-12 as well as the extension of the existing subway line 3 in accordance with the city’s policy to make the subway a central means of urban transportation that would account for more than 75% of Seoul’s traffic volume, followed by the Basic Plan for Seoul Subway in November 1993. 

However, the subway is an expensive infrastructure that requires the highest costs (as it has the highest transport capacity) among all public transportation systems. Therefore, the subway construction policy has a lot of controversies in terms of politics, economy and society and is mostly affected by the surrounding situations and circumstances. The third Seoul Metropolitan Subway plan, which included the construction of subway line 9, was in an international context of the Asian financial crisis in terms of economy and faced with a critical situation of a reduction in finance due to the Korean financial crisis (1997-2001) -  known locally as the ‘IMF crisis’. This financial situation brought about a lot of changes in the overall plan, along with the inauguration of a new mayor in 1998.