Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway revival kicks off with fresh feasibility review after 3-year halt

The push to revive the Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway project, halted under the previous administration, is formally getting underway. A new feasibility study kickoff meeting involving a joint public-private consultative body marks the starting point, with an optimal route expected to be presented in the second half of next year.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced Monday that it will hold a feasibility study kickoff meeting for the Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway on Wednesday. The meeting will review preliminary data, examine technical issues with the route proposed in a previous preliminary feasibility study, and discuss plans for the study going forward. The expressway is planned as a roughly 27-kilometer, four-lane route connecting Hanam and Yangpyeong-gun in Gyeonggi Province.

The kickoff meeting will include a public-private consultative body comprising road, transportation and environmental experts recommended by the Korea Road Society and other relevant professional organizations, as well as civil servants from local governments including the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Gyeonggi Province, Songpa-gu, Hanam, Gwangju and Yangpyeong-gun. The consultative body will periodically share progress updates at key stages of the study — separate from the agency conducting the feasibility review — and will gather broad input from experts and local governments to enhance transparency throughout the process.

The feasibility study, to be conducted by a specialized road research institution, will revisit all relevant data and project conditions from scratch, unconstrained by previous findings. It will comprehensively analyze future traffic demand, technical feasibility, economic impact, and environmental and social effects, with the goal of presenting an optimal route plan by the second half of next year.

"Given the various controversies that arose during the project's development, we will conduct a fair and objective study to produce a rational route plan that the public can trust," said Kim Hyo-jeong, director general of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's road bureau. "We will push ahead with the feasibility study without delay and move swiftly on follow-up procedures to minimize public inconvenience caused by the project's postponement."

Meanwhile, the Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway was suspended in July 2023 after allegations of preferential treatment surfaced over a change to the project's endpoint — from Yangseo-myeon to Gangsang-myeon in Yangpyeong-gun — and the project was subsequently declared scrapped. President Lee Jae Myung ordered it revived in March this year, and it is now being pursued with a target ground-breaking date of late 2029, taking into account increased demand from developments such as the Hanam Gyosan new town. The new feasibility study will evaluate the original route terminating at Yangseo-myeon, the revised route ending at Gangsang-myeon, and a third alternative, selecting the optimal alignment based on economic viability and public benefit.