Will Hongdae’s busking zone survive Seoul’s new rail plan?

A banner opposing construction of the Daejang-Hongdae Line is installed in the busking area along the Red Road near western Seoul's Hongik University, Monday. Korea Times photo by Lee Hae-rin

In almost any Korean neighborhood, news of a new subway station is greeted with celebration. In western Seoul's Hongdae area, however, a recent announcement has sparked rare rebellion.

Merchants and buskers on Red Road, a landmark pedestrian strip at the heart of the neighborhood’s youth culture, are leading an unusually fierce campaign against the planned construction of the Daejang-Hongdae Line terminus there, even as commuters, nearby residents and property owners along the route hail the project as a long-awaited upgrade to western Seoul’s rail network.

The Daejang-Hongdae Line is a roughly 20-kilometer metro project that will link Bucheon's Daejang-dong and Goyang's Deogeun-dong, both in Gyeonggi Province, with key hubs in Seoul’s Yangcheon and Gangseo areas, cross Gayang Bridge and reach Mapo District’s Hongdae area. Twelve stations are planned.

The line, backed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and built by a private consortium with a 2.1 trillion won budget, is promoted as a "transportation revolution" for southwestern Gyeonggi Province and western Seoul, where some neighborhoods currently have no subway access at all.

Once completed around 2031, the line is expected to cut travel time from Daejang-dong — where construction is underway on a planned community of about 20,000 households close to the edge of Seoul — to Hongdae from 50 minutes to 27 minutes. The real estate around the planned stations has already been branded a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity.

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Kim Dong-yeon, center, applauds during the groundbreaking event for the Daejang-Hongdae Line in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, Dec. 15. Yonhap

Anticipation is high everywhere, except on Red Road, a side street just off Hongik University Station exits 8 and 10 that has evolved into a compact showcase of Hongdae’s street culture, where buskers with guitars, dancers and experimental performers share space with small eateries and bars. The area is already so crowded during holidays and weekends that Mapo District designated it a "high-density crowd management zone" and monitors foot traffic in real time in the wake of the Itaewon crowd crush disaster.

Under a plan approved last fall, the line’s final stop, provisionally dubbed Station 111, would surface in the central plaza between Red Road’s R1 and R2 sections, turning the busking zone into a construction site for at least six years. Merchants fear that fences, 7-meter-tall screens and narrowed sidewalks would not only undermine their businesses but also erase the vibrant street culture that made Hongdae famous.

Local business owners and performers formed an emergency committee opposing the station site, stringing green tape along the ground to show where fences and access shafts would cut across storefronts and performance spots. Since July, they have run a daily tent protest and signature campaign, demanding that the terminus be moved out to the main Hongik University intersection near Exit 9 — a wide, eight-lane boulevard that can absorb crowds and construction work.

Choi Cha-soo, a restaurant owner who has worked in the area for 24 years and now leads the emergency committee, warned that the plan could undermine both pedestrian safety and the local economy, saying a "naturally formed cultural street" cannot be rebuilt once broken.

Green tape marks the ground near shop and restaurant entrances along the Red Road near western Seoul's Hongik University, marking the zone slated for the terminus station of the Daejang-Hongdae Line, Monday. Korea Times photo by Lee Hae-rin

He said an influx of construction vehicles and materials into the narrow lane would be "no different from telling us to shut down," adding, "If this construction goes ahead here, the street where young people dream and play music will disappear, and Hongdae will lose the culture that brought foreigners here in the first place."

Mapo District, which has sided with the merchants on the location issue, commissioned its own study in July, which found that a new station on Red Road would cause chronic congestion and significantly raise the risk of major crowd accidents during peak seasons such as year-end holidays and Halloween. On that basis, the district formally requested the terminus be pushed toward the main Hongik University intersection, arguing that the current plan threatens not only local businesses but also the wider tourism base that relies on Hongdae’s walkable street culture.

Merchants also argue that the controversy exposes a lack of transparency. According to the committee, the local business owners learned that the terminus would be located on the plaza only about two months before the implementation plan was approved, despite environmental and planning procedures that began a year earlier. District officials counter that they followed standard practice by posting notices and collecting opinions online, but admit they did not individually brief every tenant in the affected area.

The land ministry and construction consortium maintain that they cannot shift the station to the main intersection for technical reasons.

"Planners generally aim to keep the transfer distance between platforms within 180 meters," the official said. The distance between the alternative station location on the intersection to the Gyeongui-Jungang Line platform would be around 600 meters.

Additionally, they say, the intersection is already crowded with facilities including Line 2 tracks, power tunnels and telecom ducts, which limit the feasibility of constructing a new station there. The ministry has reviewed several alternative sites near both the main intersection and Red Road, but most options are constrained by the transfer distance principle, making it difficult to reach a compromise.