Three gateways, no gateway city why?

18 Questions for Next Busan · Day 5 of 18 Hyunseung Kim (Gray) · May 23, 2026

All three

Eleven days until Busan's next mayor is decided.

Yesterday's question: what is the sea, to Busan?

Today we step into a larger question connected to that sea.

Busan has all three. Airport, station, port.

Gimhae International Airport. Busan Station. Busan Port International Passenger Terminal.

Busan is the only city in Korea that holds all three. Seoul does not. Seoul sent its airport to Incheon, an hour west by train. Seoul sent its container port to Pyeongtaek, an hour south.

And yet Busan is not a gateway city.

Why.

What the numbers say

Busan's gateways, spring 2026:

• Gimhae International Airport international routes: approx. 40 (2nd in Korea, but only 1/5 of Incheon's)
• Busan Station daily KTX passengers: approx. 50,000
• Busan Port International Passenger Terminal Japan route passengers (2024): approx. 800,000
• Incheon International Airport international routes: approx. 200
• Busan-Tokyo direct flight time: 1 hour 50 minutes — comparable to Seoul-Jeju

Busan has all three but all three are second tier.

The airport is auxiliary to Incheon. The station is a terminus. The port focuses on short-haul Japan routes.

Three gateways exist, and none of them succeeds in making Busan the way in.

What I saw at Busan Station

Two in the afternoon, Busan Station.

People pour out of the KTX Korea's high-speed rail, two and a half hours from Seoul into the plaza. Tourists with rolling suitcases. Workers with overnight bags. Families.

Where most of them head, from the plaza, is the taxi line.

From Busan Station to Haeundae, to Gwangalli, to Songjeong — the transit connection to the next destination isn't natural. The subway exists, but the transfers are too many for someone dragging a suitcase. The buses are hard to read. So: taxi.

Busan Station is a place to arrive. Not a place to pass through.

Gateways are cities of passage. Arrive, stay, depart. Tokyo Station. Singapore Changi Airport. Hong Kong's West Kowloon Station. Those cities are destinations and departure points simultaneously.

Busan stops at destination.

Three breaks

Busan fails as a gateway because of three broken connections.

First, airport to city

Gimhae Airport to Busan Station by light rail: approx. 50 minutes. Incheon Airport to Seoul Station by express line: approx. 43 minutes. Busan's distance is far shorter, but the travel time is similar.

The first 30 minutes after arrival shapes a visitor's impression of a city. Busan makes that 30 minutes about finding the way.

Second, station to port

Busan Station to the International Passenger Terminal: barely 1km in straight distance. But no smooth transfer exists. Arrive on KTX → board the ferry to Japan. This flow should take 30 minutes in a real gateway city. It doesn't here.

Third, Busan to the next city

Busan brings people to Busan. But it doesn't carry them from Busan to the next city.

Travelers headed to Tokyo go through Incheon. Travelers headed to Fukuoka — Japan's nearest major city, only three hours by ferry from Busan — also route through Incheon. The Busan-Fukuoka ferry exists. But it isn't the default option.

For Busan to become a real gateway the flow of passing through Busan to reach the next place has to be built.

The question remains

A gateway is not infrastructure. A gateway is flow.

Even with airport, station, and port — if the three are not connected, it isn't a gateway. And if those three don't lead to the next city, it becomes a terminus.

Is Busan a terminus, or a transit point?

The answer to that question decides Busan's identity for the next decade.

When the new Gadeokdo Airport opens in the late 2020s, will it catch up to Incheon? When Busan New Port expands further, can it become the world's top transshipment hub? Those are big infrastructure questions.

But a gateway is not made by big infrastructure alone. Small connections matter more.

30 minutes from airport to city. 15 minutes from station to port. 3 hours from Busan to Fukuoka.

A city where these connections are the default that is a gateway.

One small ask

Tomorrow, the sixth question.

Whose financial center is BIFC?

If something here resonates, share it with one person — someone who wishes Busan were a place to pass through.

— Gray Busan, May 2026

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