Highways: From the MacArthur Highway to the Xueshan Tunnel, Taiwan's National Highways' Fifty Years of Power and Speed

Thirty-Second Overview
Taiwan's first "expressway" was the 23-kilometer-long MacArthur Highway, opened in 1964, which retired from duty in 1977 after the Zhongshan Expressway was completed¹. The Zhongshan Expressway (National Highway No. 1), construction started in 1971 and completed in full in 1978, was the first item in Chiang Ching-kuo's "Ten Major Projects" and Taiwan's first large-scale post-war engineering mobilization. Its 374 kilometers shortened the distance from Keelung to Kaohsiung to a one-day drive²³. The Formosa Expressway (National Highway No. 3), launched in the 1990s, formed the backbone of the "Dual National Highways"; the Xueshan Tunnel, opened in 2006, at 12.9 kilometers was the fifth-longest highway tunnel in the world at the time, taking 15 years to dig⁴⁵. ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) was fully implemented for distance-based charging at the end of 2013, bringing the toll collector system into history, but also leaving behind controversial chapters such as the Far Electronic Toll Collection case and the Legislative Yuan's correction report⁶⁷. Today, Taiwan's national highway network exceeds 1,000 kilometers, one of the few public infrastructures on this island that everyone uses every day, yet few understand its historical depth⁸.

A Post-War History Written in Asphalt

If there is one infrastructure project that can condense post-war Taiwan, it is likely the National Highway.

It involves not just engineering: behind it are the withdrawal of US aid in the 1960s, the narrative of "self-reliance" under the oil crisis and diplomatic retreat in the 1970s, the infrastructure race before party alternation in the 1990s, logistics upgrades after joining the WTO in the 2000s, and the public-private struggle surrounding an eTag sticker in the 2010s²⁶⁹.

Every stretch of road is a fingerprint of an era.

The MacArthur Highway: The Forgotten First

Taiwanese people are accustomed to saying that the "Zhongshan Expressway is the first highway," but strictly speaking, the "MacArthur Highway" (Taiwan Provincial Highway 5-1), opened in 1964 connecting Taipei and Keelung, is truly the first. It was 23.4 kilometers long, with four lanes in both directions and a design speed of 80 km/h. At the time, it was the pinnacle of Taiwan's road engineering, built with US aid support, and named after the Korean War general MacArthur¹⁹.

After the Keelung-to-Taipei section of the Zhongshan Expressway opened in 1977, the MacArthur Highway was merged into the general provincial highway system and downgraded to "urban roads." Its fate presaged one thing: in Taiwan, "highways" are eaten by higher-level "national highways"—this hierarchical game has been played for fifty years¹³.

Zhongshan Expressway: The Head of the Ten Major Projects

On August 14, 1971, the Zhongshan Expressway broke ground.

This was the first and largest of Chiang Ching-kuo's "Ten Major Projects." The design ran from Keelung to Kaohsiung, with a total length of 373 kilometers and four lanes in both directions. The completion date was politically set for October 31, 1978—Chiang Kai-shek's birthday—and named the "Zhongshan Expressway"²³¹⁰.

The difficulty of the engineering is still staggering to look at today: at that time, Taiwan did not even have highway design specifications. The engineering team translated Japanese and American standards while building, and the designs for many bridges and embankments were "starting from zero"¹⁰. The Zhongsha Bridge, Yangmei Slope, and Houlong mudstone section each have their own engineering stories. In the oral history special issue The Way of the Great Road compiled by the National Highway Bureau, engineers from that era recalled: "We were not just building roads; we were learning how to build roads."¹⁰

💡 Did You Know?
The Zhongshan Expressway was initially planned with "level crossing" design, not a true closed system. It was only changed to the "true highway" standard of a fully closed, grade-separated system during construction—meaning many sections had to be redesigned after construction began, an extremely rare "changing specifications while running" in engineering⁴¹⁰.

From the First to the Third Generation of National Highways

The Highway Bureau itself divides the development of national highways into three generations[^4]:

1. First Generation (1971–1990) — Represented by the Zhongshan Expressway, the design philosophy was "north-south vertical, shortest connection," with routes taking straight lines and avoiding urban areas.
2. Second Generation (1990–2004) — Represented by the Formosa Expressway (National Highway No. 3), it added "east-west horizontal" National Highways 6, 8, and 10, forming a grid network. Design began to consider environmental impact and integration with urban planning.
3. Third Generation (2004–present) — Represented by National Highway No. 5 (Jiang Wei-shui Expressway), the engineering focus shifted to "overcoming terrain." The Xueshan Tunnel, Beilan Straight Line, and Wuyang Viaduct are the representative works of this generation⁴⁵.

Behind each generation lies a different political logic: the first generation was a political achievement project of the authoritarian regime; the second generation was a product of coordination between local factions and the central government during the democratization process; the third generation is an engineering project where every meter of road must be explained to the public in the "EIA era."

The Fu-Hsiao Expressway: The Mocked "Political Road"

National Highway No. 3 (Formosa Expressway), planned in the 1990s, was mocked by public opinion as a "political road"—the reason being that the route wound along the foot of the mountains, bypassed many densely populated areas, and the density of interchanges was considered to "cater to local representatives"¹¹¹².

However, after the full line opened in 2004, the Fu-Hsiao Expressway took on one-third of the traffic flow in the western corridor, forming a "Dual National Highways" diversion with the Zhongshan Expressway, becoming one of the most important dual backbones of Taiwan's logistics system today. The political criticism of the year was gradually digested by time into the engineering virtue of "risk diversification."

📝 Curator's Note
The Fu-Hsiao Expressway's greatest engineering significance lies not in the road itself, but in how it "forced" Taiwanese designers to face slope engineering: cutting through the Linkou Plateau, crossing the Bagua Mountain Range, and viaducts over the Ailiao Creek valley in Pingtung—these experiences were later used in the Xueshan Tunnel and the restoration of the Southern Cross Highway.

Xueshan Tunnel: The Cost of Being the Fifth Longest in the World

If the national highway network has a "most dramatic" chapter, it must be the Xueshan Tunnel.

Construction started in 1991, originally scheduled for completion in 1998, but finally dragged until 2006 for official operation—8 years longer than scheduled, with the budget increasing several times over⁵¹³. The Xueshan Mountain Range is a "fracture zone + high groundwater pressure + hard rock interlayered with weak layers" in geological terms. All three major tunnel engineering taboos were present. During construction, there were multiple instances of massive water inflow and landslides, resulting in 25 worker fatalities, and the TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) was even trapped in the mountain body and could not be extracted⁵¹³.

In the year it opened, the 12.9-kilometer Xueshan Tunnel became the fifth-longest highway tunnel in the world and the second-longest in Asia at the time, remaining a benchmark in Taiwan's engineering history—and a warning: in the fault lines of Taiwan's plates, every kilometer of tunnel is not a problem that money can solve⁵¹³.

ETC: A Public War Sparked by a Sticker

If the Xueshan Tunnel was a "war of engineering," then ETC was a "war of systems."

The Highway Electronic Toll Collection System (ETC) went online for the first time in 2006, with Far Electronic Toll Collection obtaining a 20-year franchise right under the BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) model. The initial use of OBU (On-Board Unit) infrared vehicle units had a persistently low penetration rate. On December 30, 2013, the national highway fully implemented "electronic distance-based charging," and the manual toll stations went into history⁶¹⁴. The eTag sticker replaced the past return tickets and toll collectors.

The transition period was chaotic: at the beginning of the online launch, there were repeated deductions,感应 failures, and gantry metering errors. A statement by a Far Electronic Toll Collection spokesperson, "This is the destiny that eTags must face," ignited public anger¹⁵. In July 2014, the Legislative Yuan passed a correction report, severely criticizing the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Highway Bureau for being "subject to the manufacturer" and having unclear contract responsibilities⁷. However, in April of the same year, the Audit Committee sampled 2.8 million deduction records and found only 5 errors. After the system stabilized, Taiwan's full-road distance-based ETC became one of the few successful cases internationally¹⁶¹⁷.

⚠️ Controversial Viewpoint
A 2024 report by the National Policy Foundation pointed out that although Taiwan's ETC is viewed internationally as a "successful first example," the BOT contract handed the core database of national highway charging to a single private manufacturer, leaving structural problems that are difficult to supervise in reverse—whether this "success" is a victory for the government or the manufacturer remains controversial¹⁷.

Highway Service Areas: A Type of Taiwanese Public Space

Few countries turn highway service areas into "attractions" like Taiwan does.

Qingshui, Xihu, Dongshan, Hukou—these names in Taiwanese people's memories are not just "places to go to the bathroom," but relay stations for junior high school graduation trips, dining spots for long-distance drivers, and display fields for souvenirs. Taiwan's commercialization model for highway service areas (OT outsourcing operation, introducing local specialties) differs from the "pure rest" design of most countries, creating a Taiwanese public space jointly created by the Highway Bureau and private merchants⁸¹⁸.

The Network Still Growing

As of the end of 2024, Taiwan's national highway network consists of 10 national highways, with a total length exceeding 1,000 kilometers⁸. New engineering is still underway: the widening of National Highway No. 1 from Wuku to Yangmei, the extension of National Highway No. 2 to Taiwan Provincial Highway 61, and the planning of National Highway No. 7 (Kaohsiung East Outer Ring)—these are no longer the proposition of "north-south connection," but the new generation's topics of "metropolitan area relief" and "passenger-freight separation"⁴¹⁹²⁰.

What a Road Can Tell You

Building a highway requires not just money, but how much a society is willing to bet on the future.

The Zhongshan Expressway bet that the "western corridor would become the manufacturing heart"—it was proven correct. The Fu-Hsiao Expressway bet that "dual backbones would diversify risk"—it was also proven correct. The Xueshan Tunnel bet that "east and west would finally be connected"—in the year it opened, Yilan's housing prices doubled instantly, triggering a wave of relocation. The ETC bet on "full-road distance-based fairness"—it achieved it, but also paid the price of institutional trust.

Next time you are stuck in traffic on the national highway, look at the milestone on the side of the road. That is not just a kilometer count; it is the accumulation of Taiwan's collective decisions over the past fifty years.

Further Reading

• Ten Major Projects — The largest post-war infrastructure plan to which the Zhongshan Expressway belongs
• Xueshan Tunnel — The single most arduous structure in Taiwan's engineering history
• ETC Electronic Toll Collection — A public-private struggle that changed payment habits

References