Highway 8 open? connecting Taichung to Yilan Via highway 7

If you look on google maps you can see highway 7 goes through the valley following the river in Yilan valley.
Eventually you arrive at a round about go right you go on highway 8 that goes to Taichung City

Last time I tried this route halfway through in the middle of nowhereville they had a gate block with a guard standing duty only leting locals who live there pass due to landslide/construction this was last year anyone can confirm if this road is open?

any website to check top see if a road is currently open?

Last time I went left and had to go over the huge tall extremely steep mountain on the dangerous 1 lane road with traffic going both ways Plus its way out of the way and takes longer to get to Taichung

I would just go taipei-taoyuan-hsinchu but the stent from hsichu to Taichung is not a good flow/ with it getting confusing
and no clear direct road you end up following the 62 and when your road dead ends you end up going through farm country to find a path back to the 62 again its to bad they don’t have a good direct road that doesn’t dead end between hsinchu and taichung for scooters Done that journey 10 + times and everytime I ended up taking a different path in the in betweens/dead ends/ no more roads for the 270ccc n below areas

So how about that highway 8? is it open? Would be a first for me going this route

Unlike the Southern Cross (Hwy 20) I don’t even hear rumors that it is going to open but it would be great.

8, isn’t that the East West Cross Island?

That road was severed near Kukuan. And I think it is permanently not reopening.

Too bad as it was really pretty. Goes past the big Dam there on its way to KuKuan from Lishan.

The road from Lishan to/from Yillan is amazingly beautiful. I drive it every chance I get. Most recent was coming back from ChingJing in December. Try to be there before noon as the clouds usually come in around noon or early afternoon.

Wuling has a sufficient hotel in the park that is even pet friendly. But they had a food scare recently and shut down for awhile.

I was told on the grapevine that it’s ‘close’ to re-opening, i.e. maybe in the next couple of years if there’s no typhoon-related issues. I think select folks are being let through, but that’s all anecdotal.

Locals have been allowed through for a while. But it should not be reopened. Taiwan was permanently changed by 921 and Morakot. The land will never be stable in our lifetime in lots of areas.

This is the highway disaster information website. I recommend bookmarking it.
bobe168.tw/

I ended up taking the 8 left past the CPC heading towards hehuanshan
Did that route before and it got reallllly high and realllly cold

So I decided to venture the Fushuo farm road that goes into the 89

My impression was WOW! I can’t imagine any road in Taiwan being
any more backroadish and dangerous with a current landslide That I drove over

After driving that crazy, but fun and beautiful fushuo road I felt like
There is no reason not to open that highway 8 up since theres NO WAY IN H8LL its any worse
then Fushuo road and most likely much better No one drives the FushuoFarm road/89 because you need
a motorcycle with decent clearance in some areas or 4x4 the 8 is more for everydayers and I’m guessing
they don’t feel the 8 is safe enough for everydayers and I’m guessing everyone knows
Fushoufarms Road is just insane and do not attempt to try it so thats why its always open

I got some video of it

8 near from LIshan to Kukuan, just as it nears Kukuan was carved out of a cliff face. I think that is one of the main problem sections after the 921 earthquake.

I rode the 89 on a scooter a month ago and it’s really rough. But it isn’t fair to compare the the 8 to the 89. The 89 is a county road that mostly only locals use but the 8 is a major highway and if it’s open you are going to have very heavy traffic and people won’t even know that it’s bad until they get there. The other problem is that it’s likely that there is still extensive roadwork being done which means several sections that might be one lane only or closed for hours at a time. That can be dealt with when only a couple hundred people can access the road and only a handful are on the road at any one time. If Hwy 8 was open to traffic then there would be 1000’s everyday that wanted to drive it just to see it.

I continue to prefer that neither the 8 nor the 20 is open to personal use. Open both of them up to small minibus shuttles to keep traffic levels down but still allow access to the hiking and viewpoints.

[quote=“scomargo”]This is the highway disaster information website. I recommend bookmarking it.
bobe168.tw/[/quote]

Thank you.

[quote=“tango42”][quote=“scomargo”]This is the highway disaster information website. I recommend bookmarking it.
bobe168.tw/[/quote]

Thank you.[/quote]

According to the site above the 8 will be open in 2022 or it mentions something about the year 2022 the Chinese might not be perfectly translated into the meaning “re-open”

Sweet just 7 more years Really interested to know how long the stretch takes from the connecting point of the 7 & 8 to Taichung

I’m sure its much faster then Foshou farm road/89 or the hehuanshan 12/14 road

The thing I don’t get is yes I understand Taiwan closing a road to major traffic such as cars, trucks, you know heavy “vehicles”

because that makes sense, lots of “Vehicles” on a road its lots of weight, force, and risk for saturated unsettled areas to become a landslide danger

What I don’t understand is closing the 8 to motorcycles and scooters, they are light, not a huge force and can maneuver smallish areas where there has been a landslide

Although its possible I feel its unlikely motorcycles would be a huge force contributing to a landslide but I could see a vehicle especially a truck being a force

that could contribute to one. Hopefully Taiwan can open the 8 to motorcycles and scooters and wait for 2022 to open it to “Vehicles”

The weight of the vehicles doesn’t make a difference although heavy trucks wouldn’t be good. The problem is that it is in no condition for a heavy daily flow of traffic. Like I said there are likely several areas where they are working that are completely closed for hours or one way traffic. That results in massive waiting lines on a weekend.

[quote=“Guy1983”][quote=“tango42”][quote=“scomargo”]This is the highway disaster information website. I recommend bookmarking it.
bobe168.tw/[/quote]

Thank you.[/quote]

According to the site above the 8 will be open in 2022 or it mentions something about the year 2022 the Chinese might not be perfectly translated into the meaning “re-open”

Sweet just 7 more years Really interested to know how long the stretch takes from the connecting point of the 7 & 8 to Taichung

I’m sure its much faster then Foshou farm road/89 or the hehuanshan 12/14 road

The thing I don’t get is yes I understand Taiwan closing a road to major traffic such as cars, trucks, you know heavy “vehicles”

because that makes sense, lots of “Vehicles” on a road its lots of weight, force, and risk for saturated unsettled areas to become a landslide danger

What I don’t understand is closing the 8 to motorcycles and scooters, they are light, not a huge force and can maneuver smallish areas where there has been a landslide

Although its possible I feel its unlikely motorcycles would be a huge force contributing to a landslide but I could see a vehicle especially a truck being a force

that could contribute to one. Hopefully Taiwan can open the 8 to motorcycles and scooters and wait for 2022 to open it to “Vehicles”[/quote]

We drove from Lishan down to Deji Reservoir to have a look. Just before the road block, near the dam, is this massive landslide. The huge boulder looks like it could come dowm anytime soon. Maybe the reason for closing down the road is also to just keep people save. There must be several sections like that on the stretch that is closed off.

Nice boulder. I’d cycle under that.

Don’t suppose the #8 will be opening anytime soon then.

8 is done for

The problem for cyclists is that to detour around the damaged cliffside sections that Tommy mentioned, the makeshift road was rerouted into the river bed. Only trucks and 4-wheel drive vehicles can manage that unsealed and barely graded rocky riverbed full of boulders and debris from the past decade of typhoons. A cyclist would probably have to get off and push almost the entire closed section of the highway - a distance of about 8 kms.

While hiking in the hills to the north, at an abandoned radio relay station overlooking the closed section of the highway, I noticed that work was being done to fix the cliffside section of the road. That was about two years ago. It doesn’t mean they plan to open the road to the public though; it’s probably to make it easier for the dam workers to commute back and forth to GuGuan which they have already been doing for many years.

I think we all said the same thing about the Alishan railway and it is supposed to open soon in its entirety. I remain doubtful that either the 8 or the 20 will open again but I would not say never.

I think we all said the same thing about the Alishan railway and it is supposed to open soon in its entirety. I remain doubtful that either the 8 or the 20 will open again but I would not say never.[/quote]

I’ve never been on 20 and I regret that. The 8 was spectacular and I hope that they can link it all up again. But going from memory over 400 people lost their lives making the 8. That kind of loss is unacceptable in today’s Taiwan. Can they carve out the missing sections safely enough to not lose more then a handful of lives? If so then there is a chance.

Since cycling is getting more in vogue in Taiwan. Perhaps they could make the 8 and 20 into a cycling and moto road only? Wouldn’t have to be as wide. And it would not disturb nature as much as well, unless there were zillions of scoots going on it. Problem would be ambulance access when accidents happen. The road would have to be big enough for ambulances to access. Or perhaps they could use a small blue truck for that purpose?

But probably if the road can be made big enough for a scoot, it can be made big enough for a car, bus, truck, etc.

Or maybe they can have access up to a point from either end and have a big turnaround. So the road can be enjoyed. Just have to do it from each end on a separate occasion.

There may be sections that should probably never open again. Just too dangerous to reopen , too susceptible to landslides. Sections that a bigger quake or typhoon could wipe out again.

I’ve taken the 89 before… in a scooter… with a passenger… after a rain. In some places I was driving through truck-tire ruts half a meter deep. I don’t know what it’s like now, but at the time… holy crap. I was counting down the 0.5km signs for 20km just waiting for it to end. I had no idea if it would even go all the way through, or I’d just come up to a pond that was too deep to cross. There was so much standing water on the road and deep mud. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t wait for that road to end, and I usually love that stuff. It looks better now, in your vid, or maybe it’s just drier. But in September 2014 the only vehicles on the road were my dirty-ass scooter, a few dirtbikes, and a lot of dump trucks.

“No one drives the FushuoFarm road/89 because you need
a motorcycle with decent clearance in some areas or 4x4”

Except me. Because I’m an idiot and didn’t know. 150cc 10 year old scooter for the win!

[quote=“Guy1983”]I ended up taking the 8 left past the CPC heading towards hehuanshan
Did that route before and it got reallllly high and realllly cold

So I decided to venture the Fushuo farm road that goes into the 89

My impression was WOW! I can’t imagine any road in Taiwan being
any more backroadish and dangerous with a current landslide That I drove over

After driving that crazy, but fun and beautiful fushuo road I felt like
There is no reason not to open that highway 8 up since theres NO WAY IN H8LL its any worse
then Fushuo road and most likely much better No one drives the FushuoFarm road/89 because you need
a motorcycle with decent clearance in some areas or 4x4 the 8 is more for everydayers and I’m guessing
they don’t feel the 8 is safe enough for everydayers and I’m guessing everyone knows
Fushoufarms Road is just insane and do not attempt to try it so thats why its always open

I got some video of it


[/quote]