Deputy Governor Shin Won-cheol visits KDI Public and Private Infrastructure Investment Management Center
"Traffic on National Route 43, which connects Pocheon and Cheorwon, rose about 68 percent from 18,747 vehicles per day in 2017 to 31,450 in 2025. It needs to become an expressway."
Shin Won-cheol, economic deputy governor of Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province, holds a doctorate in public administration from Dongguk University and a bachelor's degree in public administration from Incheon National University. He has also served as an adjunct professor of urban engineering at Sogang University and was elected to three consecutive terms in the Seoul Metropolitan Assembly.
Shin visited the Korea Development Institute's Public and Private Infrastructure Investment Management Center on Wednesday to make the case for building the Pocheon-Cheorwon Expressway and to urge the center to give the project a thorough review during its preliminary feasibility study.
He said traffic congestion along the Sinbuk interchange-to-Cheorwon corridor has been worsening, with travel times running under 30 minutes on weekdays but stretching to more than 90 minutes on weekends as tourists and vehicles flood the route.
Shin told KDI officials that once built, the expressway would ease congestion on National Route 43 by redistributing traffic, cut travel times between the Greater Seoul area and Cheorwon, reduce inconvenience for residents and improve tourism access.
According to Gangwon Province, the Pocheon-Cheorwon Expressway would span 24 kilometers from Pocheon in Gyeonggi Province to Cheorwon-gun in Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province, at a total project cost of 1.33 trillion won ($1 billion). The project was included in the second national expressway construction plan in 2022 and was selected as a preliminary feasibility study candidate in April 2025.
Shin said the expressway is more than a local road — it would secure continuity along the fourth north-south corridor of the national arterial road network and serve as a critical transportation link connecting the Greater Seoul area with northern Gangwon Province, improving access to the border region.
Gangwon Province pointed to the improvements that followed the opening of the Guri-Pocheon Expressway in 2017, which boosted access to Pocheon and spurred industrial complex activity and corporate investment in the area, as evidence that extending the route to Cheorwon would deliver similar benefits for the county's industrial and tourism development.
The five industrial complexes in Pocheon currently average an occupancy rate of about 77 percent, with the Jangja and Geumhyeon complexes both at 100 percent.
With Pocheon and Cheorwon among the candidates designated for a peace economy special zone, the expressway is expected to strengthen industrial and logistics competitiveness in the border region and support the development of the special zone as well as ecotourism in the Demilitarized Zone.
"The Pocheon-Cheorwon Expressway is a critical transportation link that will resolve the long-standing traffic hardships of border-region residents, improve access to the Greater Seoul area and at the same time support the local economy and balanced national development," Shin said. "We will work closely with relevant agencies to ensure that tourism demand, local conditions and the unique characteristics of the border region are fully reflected in the preliminary feasibility study."
abc@heraldcorp.com
