30-Second Overview: In 2020, Taichung’s first MRT Green Line halted trial operations on its sixth day due to a coupler failure, only officially opening the following year. This 16.7-km elevated route connects Beitun, Wenzheng Road, and Taichung HSR Station, bringing a city long dependent on buses, scooters, and cars into an era of rail transit that must discuss transfers, safety, and walking. What it truly changes is not just where people board, but how Taichung begins to understand its own distances through the lens of the "next station."
On November 16, 2020, Lu Siu-yan announced the start of trial operations for the Taichung MRT Green Line, giving the city its first MRT. That day, over 70,000 people entered the stations, resembling a large-scale city tasting event. People were not just riding the train; they were confirming whether Taichung could truly become a city that moves by rail. 1
Six days later, the shaft of the semi-permanent coupler between train cars fractured, halting all 18 trains. The Green Line, originally scheduled for official opening at the end of 2020, did not return to the tracks until April 25, 2021. 2
The most noteworthy aspect of this line is precisely that it did not follow the script of the opening ceremony. The Taichung MRT is not a period mark for "finally having an MRT," but rather a first attempt by a city with wide roads, many cars and scooters, and a dispersed layout to place safety, transfers, and trust on the same route map.
Figure: Taichung MRT Green Line train. Photo by Cbliu. Image source: Wikimedia Commons File Page, licensed under the Taichung City Government News Bureau Government Website Open Data License, with source attribution required. 3
A City Starts with "Having No MRT"
Taichung’s MRT plan did not appear as a sudden blueprint. Official network data traces the planning origin back to the 1990s. The Wu-Ri-Wenxin Beitun Line was approved as the initial network by the Executive Yuan in 2004. In 2008, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Taichung City Government, and the Taipei City Government signed construction and operation agreements. Construction began in October 2009. 4
This period was long, long enough for the line’s name, construction units, and the city’s imagination to go through several rounds. The Green Line ultimately became an approximately 16.7-km elevated medium-capacity transit system, starting from Beitun Terminal, looping around the west side of the urban area, and connecting to Taichung HSR Station, with a total of 18 stations. It does not directly enter the TRA Taichung Station; this choice reminds people that the MRT is not a magic wand that solves all transportation problems at once, but rather a skeleton chosen first for its feasibility. 5
What a single MRT line truly changes is not just commuting time, but the way people judge "whether this place counts as the city center."
📝 Curator’s Note
The counter-intuitive nature of the Taichung Green Line lies not in it being faster than other cities, but in turning the debate "Does Taichung need an MRT?" into a daily life question that can be personally verified every morning.
The scale of the project is also easily obscured by the word "opening." Railway Gazette reported that Green Line construction began in 2009, with a route length of approximately 16.7 km and total costs of approximately NT$59.3 billion, of which the central government bore about NT$32.8 billion. The trains use an unmanned driving system, with a fleet consisting of 36 sets of two-car trains. 5
The same project required construction above dense urban blocks. Project records from escalator and elevator supplier Otis mention that the project included 117 heavy-duty escalators and 59 elevators, with some station construction spaces only about 5 to 6 meters from surrounding buildings. These numbers are not just equipment lists; they explain why the Taichung Green Line has always felt like a surgery running parallel to existing streets. 6
The Crowd on the First Day, The Crack on the Sixth Day
On the first Saturday of trial operations, CNA recorded that the Green Line had already seen 47,094 passengers by 2 p.m., with the day’s total ridership estimated to potentially break 90,000. Taichung HSR Station, Beitun Terminal, and City Hall Station became the three hottest nodes. Songzhu Station also added holiday shuttle buses connecting to the Xinshe Flower Sea and the Taichung International Flower Carpet Festival. 1
This scene looked like a city queuing to welcome the future. Passengers held ticket cards, took photos of the train cars and elevated tracks, and MRT merchandise was also sold at the "Little Green Welfare Society" at Taichung HSR Station. The MRT was treated as a transportation tool, but also as a city souvenir one could take home.
But on November 22, the first trial operation ended early in the evening. Subsequent inspections by the Taichung MRT revealed that the shaft of the traction device in the semi-permanent coupler between the EMU train cars had fractured. The Taichung MRT Company’s chronicle records that all 18 trains were halted for inspection and repair. The city government established an accident review committee, followed by the replacement and upgrade of the shaft and a 300-km operation test. 2
📝 Curator’s Note
The trust of a new city is not won on the day of opening. It grows slowly only after the failure, when "what broke, how it was fixed, and who confirmed it" are explained clearly, piece by piece.
CNA’s timeline makes this delay clear. The Green Line was originally expected to open in December 2020. After the failure, it did not resume trial operations until March 25, 2021, and did not officially operate until April 25. This is not simply an engineering delay, but the most difficult kind of delay for public transport: passengers have already seen the stations and ridden the trains, yet still cannot treat it as a reliable daily routine. 2
From an engineer’s perspective, the lesson of this line is specific. Testing is not a ritual before opening, but work that must continue to be revisited after opening. From a passenger’s perspective, it is another issue: a line can be very new, but it cannot require passengers to use their own bodies to complete the final verification for it.
The Green Line Connects More Than Just Two Endpoints
The Green Line is most easily understood as a shuttle line "from Beitun to HSR." This understanding is not wrong, but it is too narrow. It simultaneously places Beitun’s residential areas, Songzhu’s TRA transfer, commercial activities on Wenzheng Road, the administrative core around City Hall, and Taichung HSR Station into the same ticketing system and headway.
This line also makes Taichung’s urban scale perceptible. The elevated tracks pass above the streets, and stations with escalators lift people from the road surface to another height. Places that were only adjacent on the map now have the concrete unit of "the next station." The city is no longer described only by road length, but also by the waiting time between stations.
Railway Gazette notes that the Green Line loops around the west side of the city center and does not serve the TRA Taichung Station. This gap makes it more like a first skeleton rather than a completed network. The City Government’s MRT Engineering Bureau currently includes the extension of the Green Line to Dakeng and Changhua, as well as subsequent routes such as the Blue Line, Orange Line, Purple Line, and Red Line, in the overall rail network vision. 4 5
_Figure: Taichung MRT train approaching Taichung HSR Station. Photo by WC-QHS. Image source: Wikimedia Commons File Page, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, requiring author attribution, licensing, and sharing derivative works in the same manner.* 7
Source: Taichung City Government MRT Engineering Bureau, Taichung Metro Co., Ltd., CNA
📝 Curator’s Note
The value of the first line is not that it has already connected all of Taichung, but that it makes the next line no longer just a colored line, but a commitment that passengers can use for comparison.
The Impact of an MRT Line Is Not Just in Boarding Numbers
MRTs are often discussed in terms of ridership and housing prices, but neither alone represents urban transformation. A 2022 study using a hedonic pricing model based on residential transaction data from 2012 to 2021 analyzed the residential market in administrative districts the Green Line passes through. It found that for every 100 meters increase in distance from a residential property to an MRT station, the unit price decreased by an average of 0.4%. The study also noted that in areas with more developed bus networks, the marginal improvement in accessibility provided by the MRT was smaller. 8
Placing this result back into Taichung’s transportation conditions makes it even more interesting. Taichung originally had buses, scooters, and wide roads; the Green Line was added to a system with existing transportation habits. Whether it can change lives depends on whether people are willing to switch to buses at their doorstep, transfer at Songzhu or HSR stations, and leave the last leg to walking.
In other words, changes in housing prices near MRT stations are just one result. The more important question is whether stations truly allow people to ride scooters less, allow children to walk to the station entrance on their own, and give non-drivers more options in Taichung. The success of transportation infrastructure should not be measured only by "how much nearby prices increased," but also by asking "who gained an additional way to arrive."
The City Above the Stations, The Daily Life Below
Most sections of the Green Line are elevated, making stations a vertical urban entrance. Passengers first walk from the arcade, intersection, or bus stop to the station body, then ascend via escalators and elevators, finally reaching the platform. Otis’s project records indicate that the Green Line has 18 stations, and during construction, it was necessary to install 117 heavy-duty escalators and 59 elevators without disrupting daily vehicle and pedestrian flow. 6
Figure: Taichung MRT City Hall Station Green Line Platform. Photo by Cheng, Cheng-en, Wikimedia user Rail02000. Image source: Wikimedia Commons File Page, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, requiring author attribution, licensing, and sharing derivative works in the same manner. 9
This vertical movement has its costs. For those in a hurry, the distance at the stairwell is the transfer cost. For those pushing strollers, using wheelchairs, or carrying luggage, whether elevators are easy to find is the prerequisite for using the MRT. MRT accessibility does not start only after the train arrives at the platform; it is determined from the first leg of the path from the sidewalk to the entrance.
The Taichung Green Line thus also serves as a reminder suspended above the city: tracks can cross blocks, but life cannot be left hanging. Sidewalks around stations, rain shelters, bus shuttles, and nighttime lighting will determine whether an elevated MRT is a convenient daily routine or just a pretty line on a map.
📝 Curator’s Note
Elevated MRTs lift the trains, but they do not lift passengers off the ground. True urban engineering still happens in that stretch of road before the entrance.
How Stations Connect Two Modes of Transport
Photos of the City Hall Station platform make the spatial logic of the elevated MRT concrete. The train stops above the city, while below the platform remains the daily intersection of offices, commerce, and roads. What passengers see is a train entering the station; what the city truly bears is how to connect the station entrance, escalators, platform, and ground pedestrian paths into a flow that does not require repeated guessing. 9
Photos of Songzhu Station present another problem. The MRT and TRA are not abstract two nodes; they must be connected by exits, stairs, covered spaces, and directional signs. When travelers drag luggage or transfer during peak hours, the transfer distance directly becomes a person’s rating of public transport. This explains why the value of a route cannot be judged solely by train speed, but also by whether the doors between the two systems are truly opened together. 10
From an urban design perspective, the station bodies in the pictures are not background; they are the result of transportation policy. Elevated tracks lift the main transportation function, making the ground level require safer crossings, clear signage, and continuous pedestrian spaces. If the station body only completes the train function but not the walking function, the MRT will still be cut into isolated segments of equipment.
📝 Curator’s Note
The most useful time for pictures is not to add scenery to the article, but to turn the abstract statement "transfers are important" into a visible door, a stretch of road that must be walked.
In 2023, Safety Issues Return Outside the Train Doors
On May 10, 2023, a Green Line train collided with a crane arm that had fallen from a construction site onto the tracks near Fengle Park Station, causing the death of passenger Lin Shu-ya and injuring 10 others. After the accident, the Taichung MRT proposed strengthening emergency hand signals, allowing passengers to prevent doors from closing, and making it easier for on-board personnel to access tool bags. It also planned to add station emergency buttons and devices better able to identify obstacles. 11
This accident pushed the safety boundary from inside the train to the city. The MRT company can manage stations, trains, and tracks, but construction sites next to elevated tracks, crane arms, and construction management also directly enter the passenger’s travel path. When the MRT passes through dense urban blocks, every project in the city can become part of the rail system.
Accident investigation and subsequent improvements should not be treated as an appendix to the opening story. The Taichung MRT chronicle records that the Railway Transportation Safety and Accident Investigation Council released the accident investigation report in 2023, and all 5 recommendations proposed by the city government and the Taichung MRT have been completed. This "completion" still needs to be continuously tested, because safety is not a closing certificate, but whether everyone knows what to do before the next anomaly occurs. 2
The most important equipment of the MRT, besides the sensors on the tracks, also includes the shared reaction of every person knowing when to stop.
What Passengers Will Ultimately Remember
The Taichung MRT official chronicle shows that the Green Line broke through cumulative ridership of 10 million in September 2022, created a record of 59,000 passengers during the 2023 New Year’s Eve transport rush, and set a new monthly ridership record in December 2024. By January 2026, official data recorded cumulative ridership breaking 60 million, with overall passenger satisfaction in 2025 at 95.6%. These numbers show that the Green Line has gradually shifted from a novel experience to daily use. 2
Source: Railway Gazette, Taichung Metro Co., Ltd.
But what passengers truly remember may not be 16.7 km, nor a specific ridership record, but the light and shadows at Wenzheng Forest Park Station, the transfer at Songzhu Station, the train on the HSR platform, or one rainy day when the escalator entrance was crowded with people who had not yet learned how to ride the MRT.
The urban significance of the Taichung MRT is hidden in these unglamorous repetitions. Some people ride the train to work for the first time; some take children to the HSR station; some no longer need to find parking spots just to see an event. Fixed tracks turn the city’s future into an action that can be repeated every day. When station bodies, platforms, transfers, and streets are strung together by the same journey, the MRT truly transforms from an engineering term into urban life.
Transfers Are Not Optional Extras, But the Green Line’s Second Track
The Green Line’s 18 stations will not complete a journey alone. For most passengers, the true route is home to the bus stop, bus stop to the MRT entrance, platform to the destination, and finally from the last station into the office, school, or mall. Every handoff may cause people to recalculate time. If one segment has no rain shelter, no clear signage, or the waiting time is too long, passengers may return to the familiar scooter.
The importance of Songzhu Station and Taichung HSR Station lies precisely in making the Green Line not just a single path between two endpoints. The former places the MRT into the TRA transfer network; the latter places the urban rail with high-speed rail, shuttle buses, and intercity travel on the same schedule. The value of these nodes is not how large the station body itself is, but whether transportation tools of different speeds can connect in the same outing. 1 4
The next question for the Taichung Green Line is therefore not simply "how many more lines need to be built." As the network grows longer, ticketing, headways, transfer distances, and information design must all grow together. If each line is convenient on its own, but transferring requires walking far, the city may only get more options, not an easier life to reach. This is also why the city government plans the Green Line extension and the Blue, Orange, Purple, and Red Lines within the overall network. 4
From an engineering management perspective, transfers are still the best place to test whether public infrastructure is user-centered. Train punctuality can be proven by system records; whether passengers are willing to ride again depends on whether they can safely cross intersections after exiting, know where the next bus comes from, and whether they can avoid detours when carrying luggage. The Green Line’s urban achievement will ultimately fall on these details that do not appear in ribbon-cutting photos.
Figure: Entrance-exit between Taichung MRT Songzhu Station and TRA Songzhu Station. Photo by Tbatb. Image source: Wikimedia Commons File Page, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, requiring author attribution, licensing, and sharing derivative works in the same manner. 10
📝 Curator’s Note
Drawing an MRT line on a map only requires two endpoints; moving it into life requires many stretches of road. True transfer is convincing these segments into the same journey.
After the Green Line, What Else Must Taichung Answer?
The first line brought Taichung into the MRT era, but did not automatically make everyone an MRT passenger. The connection between the Green Line and buses, the walking environment around stations, the transfer between TRA and HSR, and whether future networks like the Blue Line and Red Line can proceed as planned will determine whether this line ultimately becomes an isolated exhibit or the skeleton of urban transportation. 4
This is also the most memorable contradiction of the Taichung MRT: it declares that the city is changing via elevated tracks, yet still must rely on buses, walking, and existing roads to complete every journey. The MRT did not replace the city; it rearranged the originally scattered transportation choices.
📝 Curator’s Note
What Taichung truly waits for is an urban daily life where "one can arrive without driving," not just another MRT. The Green Line has begun to answer, but has not finished answering.
The failure in November 2020 taught Taichung that an MRT must first learn to correct itself. The crane arm accident in 2023 taught it that MRT safety cannot be confined within station walls. As the Green Line continues to accumulate passengers, it continues to turn the city’s promise into a route that can be checked.
The destination is not Taichung HSR Station, nor the next color on the future network map. For passengers, the true destination is a day when they no longer need to first ask "does Taichung have an MRT," but can directly check when the next train arrives.
Further Reading
- Taichung City Government MRT Engineering Bureau: Overall Rail Network
- Taichung Metro Co., Ltd.: Chronology
- Wikimedia Commons: Train of Taichung MRT.jpg
References
- CNA: Taichung MRT Green Line Rush to Ride First Weekend May Break 90,000 Passengers — Reports on the immediate ridership, main transfer stations, and train anomalies of the first Saturday of trial operations in November 2020, providing a news scene of passenger reactions in the early opening period.↩23
- Taichung Metro Co., Ltd.: Chronology — The Taichung MRT official yearly compilation of planning, construction, coupler faults, official opening, accident improvements, and cumulative ridership operational records; it is the primary source for this article’s timeline and latest data.↩2345
- Wikimedia Commons: Train of Taichung MRT.jpg — The file page identifies photographer Cbliu; the image comes from Taichung City Government News Bureau public data, licensed under the Government Website Open Data License, allowing reproduction and modification with source attribution.↩
- Taichung City Government MRT Engineering Bureau: Overall Rail Network — The Taichung City Government explains the MRT planning history, the Green Line priority route and extension, and the overall network direction including the Blue, Orange, Purple, and Red Lines.↩2345
- Railway Gazette: Taichung Green Line ready to open — International railway professional media compiled the Green Line’s length, costs, stations, unmanned trains, route endpoints, and elevated configuration before trial operations, providing an English cross-source.↩23
- Otis Global Projects: Taichung MRT — The escalator and elevator supplier’s project page records the Green Line’s 18 stations, 117 heavy-duty escalators, 59 elevators, and coordination in dense urban construction, supplementing the equipment scale of the engineering site.↩2
- Wikimedia Commons: 2020-11-20 MRT train near HSR Taichung Station — The file page identifies photographer WC-QHS; the original photo comes from Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic, allowing sharing and modification but requiring author attribution, license links, and same-manner sharing.↩
- Shao Chuan-ju, Chen Feng-yao: A Study on the Impact of the Taichung MRT Green Line on Surrounding Residential Prices — A 2022 study in the Journal of Land Economics used a model based on transaction cases from 2012 to 2021 to analyze the relationship between MRT distance, bus networks, and residential prices.↩
- Wikimedia Commons: Taichung Metro Taichung City Hall Station Green Line Platform — The file page identifies author Cheng, Cheng-en, Wikimedia user Rail02000; licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, allowing sharing and modification but requiring author attribution, licensing, and same-manner sharing.↩2
- Wikimedia Commons: Entrance-exit between Taichung Metro Songzhu Station and TRA Songzhu Station 02 — The file page identifies author Tbatb; licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, allowing sharing and modification but requiring author attribution, licensing, and same-manner sharing.↩2
- Taipei Times: MRT company proposes changes after fatal crash — English report compiling the casualties, rescue time, procedural gaps, and safety improvement proposals from the Taichung MRT following the 2023 Fengle Park Station crane arm fall accident.↩
