Houses within reach

Super subway to bring more babies to South Korea

Around 9.8 million people live in Seoul.(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The country with the lowest birth rate in the world South Korea now wants to motivate its citizens to have children. And with a kind of super-subway of all things ...

Many young couples in South Korea have to travel long distances to work. Apartments in the Seoul metropolitan area, where half of all South Koreans live, are cramped and expensive. For these reasons, many no longer want to get married or start a family.

Hope now lies in the new subway. President Yoon Suk Yeol inaugurated the first section of the 134 trillion won (92 billion euros) project in the capital Seoul on Friday. Shorter journey times will enable people to "spend more time with their families in the mornings and evenings", said the head of state.

People need more free time
Six lines connecting Seoul and several outlying districts are to be built for the Great Train eXpress (GTX) by 2035. The GTX would allow young people to consider a home far away from the capital without having to commute for hours, Minister Park Sang-woo proudly told Reuters news agency. "How are you supposed to find time for your children on the way home with a two-hour commute? The idea is to give people more free time after work." The time they would save could be used for their families.

Travel time reduced from 80 to 19 minutes
The section of the first line inaugurated by the President is intended to reduce the travel time between the Seoul district of Suseo and the satellite city of Dongtan from the current 80 minutes by bus to 19 minutes with the new subway. The GTX is set to become one of the fastest subway systems in the world, with trains traveling at top speeds of 180 km/h.