After ten years of repairs, the Southern Cross-Island Highway reopens to Tianchi, and the flood of vehicles overwhelms it, prompting locals to call for total volume control
The Southern Cross-Island Highway (Provincial Highway No. 20) runs from Yujing in Tainan, through Jiaxian, Liugui's Baolai and Taoyuan in Kaohsiung, crossing Yushan National Park, and reaching Guanshan in Taitung. Its magnificent scenery has made it a popular tourist route, but it was devastated by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, leading to a closure and repairs lasting more than ten years, which also dealt a severe blow to the livelihoods of the tribes along the route.
The Directorate General of Highways announced the opening of the highlight section from Meishankou to Tianchi on January 13, attracting a large number of Southern Cross-Island Highway fans to revisit old haunts. The long-unseen flood of vehicles emerged, and businesses along the route were all thrilled and hopeful. Local conservationists reminded that "the Southern Cross-Island Highway reveals the land's real wounds. Excessive pursuit of economic development means the bitter consequences are borne by the forests and the tribal residents. The landslides seen along the Southern Cross-Island Highway are not caused by road building or logging, but by the backlash of extreme climate. This is something people traveling on the highway must reflect on."
Southern Cross-Island General Store: Ten years have passed, please let us serve everyone once again!
When Yang Dengming, owner of the Meilan General Store, introduces himself, he makes a point of noting that his family are descendants of Hakka from Miaoli who came south a hundred years ago to harvest and process camphor. After the camphor industry declined in the 1930s, many migrants went to Taitung to break new ground or returned north. Yang Dengming's grandfather stayed along the Southern Cross-Island Highway to run a general store, which unexpectedly proved more profitable than laboring. By the time it reached Yang Dengming's father, a small inn and a gas station had been added one after another to serve passing travelers.
"Please note, the next gas station is in Chishang, 110 kilometers away." The eye-catching sign reminds travelers that this is the last gas station in the Southern Cross-Island Highway mountain area. The Yang family, who had not seen a flood of vehicles on the Southern Cross-Island Highway for a long time, seemed especially happy.
During the typhoon disaster, Yang Dengming and his wife Peng Yijun insisted on staying to guard the family business, only leaving by helicopter after a mandatory evacuation order came down. A month later, reconstruction work began, and the contractor asked the Yang couple to return to operate the store and supply fuel for the construction vehicles. A century-old family business they had once thought they would have to abandon was kept going once again because of the reconstruction work.
For the full ten years after the disaster, reconstruction work replaced tourists as the main customers of the Southern Cross-Island General Store, which stocked everything from daily goods, cigarettes and betel nut to engineering equipment and consumables, making it virtually a mini department store. The Yang family's two children also returned from the city to help, and now the third generation has been born, with the whole family guarding this little general store together. Peng Yijun said living expenses in the mountains are low, and the key is that "we've earned a family safe and sound; a family reunited is happiness."
After the January 13 opening, traffic on the once-quiet highway surged, and business at the gas station and general store for supplies immediately increased noticeably. But there were also accidents from vehicles driving too fast, with ambulances speeding by every day. Even so, Peng Yijun still said, "After waiting ten years, it's finally open, and it feels like we're about to welcome a new life and new hope! I'm happier than at Chinese New Year." Even though life has become a bit noisier, her face was full of irrepressible delight and smiles.
Liugui Baolai business district: The opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway is like rain after a long drought, but no one knows how long the crowds will last
Baolai is a famous hot spring resort in Kaohsiung. Locals describe it this way: if the Southern Cross-Island Highway is a major artery, carrying crowds and driving economic development, then Baolai is the heart of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, with dozens of hot spring hotels of all sizes serving as relay stations for travelers to stay and rest.
Zhong Xianggui, former chairman of the business district association, pays attention to the number of vehicles on the Southern Cross-Island Highway every day and can display the data on hand at any moment: "663 on the first day, then 507, 684, 609, 564 in order, 997 on Saturday, close to breaking the thousand mark, and on Sunday it jumped all at once to 1,322 vehicles."
There is good reason Zhong Xianggui's heart leaps along with the numbers. He recalls the glory days before the typhoon disaster: "On Baolai Street there were people around the clock, business was incredibly good, taking money and making change, the drawer almost never had time to close." After the typhoon disaster, Baolai was hit hard by floods, and the whole street fell into the depths, barely breathing.
Recalling that bleak time, Zhong Xianggui described it as "a blow too deep for Baolai: losing direction, having no industry, seeing no future." He once went to Qishan, which was less severely hit, rented a storefront on the old street, and sold Southern Cross-Island Highway produce, but helplessly the rent kept rising, so he had no choice but to retreat back to Baolai.
After the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, Zhong Xianggui estimated that business at shops had generally risen by about 30 percent, but he also worried that the crowd effect would not last, and hoped the government would help speed up the construction so that the tourist crowds on the Southern Cross-Island Highway could soon return.
Wang Pengzi, a former tourism section chief who long served Liugui, believes the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway has attracted many people to revisit old haunts, but he estimates the crowds will decline after the Chinese New Year holiday. Since the currently open section to Tianchi still requires turning back, the local area still needs to think about how to develop in-depth pocket tourism; after the boom cools, the communities and tribes should still be able to attract travelers to keep coming back.
Meishan tribal youth: Setting up a "small tribal market" to catch the opening traffic
In November, the Directorate General of Highways discussed the highway opening with the Meishan tribe. Tribal youth Lu Shihao and his cousin Du Yucheng were quick-witted and figured out how to take advantage of the opportunity to make a little money. The open space below the Yushan National Park Headquarters stone marker belongs to the Du family, and the family leveled the land to turn it into a small tribal market selling cabbage, agricultural products, and snacks.
Since the opening, Lu Shihao has harvested and sold out all sixty heads of cabbage every day. He believes this wave of enthusiasm is only short-term and that crowds will drop sharply after the New Year, so he can only take advantage of this wave of popularity to clear out all the short-season winter vegetables. He revealed that most tribal people in Taoyuan do diverse work: on one hand tending their own fields, growing plums, plums, peaches and other high-mountain fruit trees; on the other hand seeking various job opportunities in the mountains, such as working for engineering units or serving as security guards.
Lu Shihao said that before the typhoon disaster, the Taoyuan tribe could sell directly from roadside stalls, but after the typhoon disaster they could only truck goods to Fuxing Village for joint marketing and shipment, or else hand them over to the Liugui Farmers' Association, which naturally discounted their profits. "If we could sell directly to tourists by the highway, saving freight, cardboard boxes and handling fees, the increase in income would be very noticeable." He believes the highway opening has clearly raised tribal income.
Jiaxian residents: "This road was too hard to travel, so it is all the more worth cherishing"
Zeng Jiajing, who promotes cultural creativity and local tourism in Jiaxian, believes the Southern Cross-Island Highway is like a portrait of post-disaster reconstruction. After reopening, it should not just push tourist crowds higher; the Southern Cross-Island Highway bears much of the land's wounds from nature's backlash, and total volume control should be introduced as a companion measure so that visitors cherish this mountain forest.
"This road was waited on for ten years, and these ten years were too hard to travel. How many people risked their lives, sacrificed and gave their all to open this road?" Zeng Jiajing believes people should view the reopening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway with humility and gratitude.
Community worker Zeng Liyun said, "I hope this highway can let travelers see the price paid over these ten years and cherish the use of environmental resources. Otherwise, nature can take it all back at any time." She believes the Southern Cross-Island Highway is an environmental classroom given by nature, letting visitors better understand the importance of environmental sustainability.
Chen Zhicheng, general secretary of the Jiaxian Image Business District, said, "After the reopening, seeing the growth in crowds feels like seeing hope for a tourism revival, but maintaining this highway with reinforced concrete is not enough." He also agrees that total volume control and high-occupancy measures should be adopted to avoid overloading the environment, so that the Southern Cross-Island Highway can remain open for the long haul.
Public works unit: The geology along the Southern Cross-Island Highway is fragile, and the restoration work has been full of hazards
Chen Zhengwei, section chief of the Jiaxian Public Works Section, pointed out that the Southern Cross-Island Highway restoration project faced enormous difficulties: the landslide area above the Meishan Ming Tunnel was as large as 13 soccer fields, and in 2016 it experienced a major collapse that crushed the newly completed tunnel. Heavy rain during the flood season also caused the work zone to close and stop work many times. The difficulty was so great that a contractor even chose to terminate the contract and flee.
In response to outside doubts about the necessity of restoring the Southern Cross-Island Highway, Chen Zhengwei explained that the highway has tourism economic benefits and is also an important road linking Bunun tribes and connecting the east and west. At present, the Southern Cross-Island Highway has been downgraded from provincial highway status to a temporary access road (with signs marked "No. 105 Temporary Access Road"), reducing its scale to lessen the project's disturbance to the environment.
It is understood that before the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, local figures were invited to attend a meeting. At that time, some advocated total volume control to avoid putting too much pressure on the highway's fragile ecological environment, but another view held that in the initial trial-opening period many people would come from afar, and for the convenience of the public there should not be too many restrictions. In the end, the highway unit decided on a plan without restrictions.
No total volume control for now; suitable measures to be studied after the spring break
In response, Chen Zhengwei said that although there is no total volume control, the highway unit controls traffic volume by controlling opening hours. As for the issue of forest conservation, the highway unit cannot restrain people entering the mountains from engaging in mountain activities, and the Yushan National Park Headquarters has now added patrol rangers and police officers to help maintain the Southern Cross-Island Highway's mountain forest environment.
Chen Zhengwei observed that the Southern Cross-Island Highway has drawn considerable attention in recent days, and one can feel the cherishing and care for it in online sentiment. But he also revealed a problem: because people and vehicles have poured in, the restoration work has also been affected and progress delayed. After the Chinese New Year holiday, the highway unit will again collect opinions from all sides and study suitable measures. When the rainy season and flood season arrive, it is very likely that new control measures will be proposed.
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