Last I heard the HSR station in Nangang is supposed to open in January, but I haven’t heard about an actual date. The shopping complex there has at least partially opened. In the future, is Nangang likely to become another Banqiao as opposed to the sleepy little station it is today? Will more TRA expresses stop there as well? Or are these overly rosy dreams?
I went there with my wife and kids last weekend to check out the restaurants. They were way too crowded so we ended up leaving and heading to Songshan for dinner. There’s a decent Italian restaurant I want to go to and a Shanghai restaurant that I want to try when things settle down a bit. I have no idea when the HSR will be up and running, and it’ll be interesting to see how things develop in the area. I see a lot of action (development) in the area with Nangang MRT station, Songshan Train/MRT station, Nangang Software Park, and now this. Back to the restaurants at Nangang HSR, the layout for parking is terrible- driving in small circles until you get to the fifth floor where parking starts, and then more driving in circles to get to a floor with empty spaces.
I’m not so sure of that. Banqiao was already densely populated and bordered by Tucheng, Zhonghe, Shulin, and Xinzhuang, which together make up a huge portion of New Taipei’s population. Nangang neighbors the equally quiet Neihu and is sort of close to Xizhi, which is also pretty quiet. There’s not much room for explosive population growth there either due to the geography of the area and the fact that most of the land is already being used. Don’t get me wrong, there will be development, but I don’t think you can expect anything like Banqiao, which is sort of the urban center of New Taipei.