City sets out new plan to tackle traffic woes

Hai Thanh city's Department of Transport has set out a five-year plan to reduce traffic congestion, which local businesses say is costing the city millions of dollars a year in lost time.

At a meeting with residents last Thursday, Director Le Quang Vinh admitted that the city's roads had not kept pace with its rapid growth. "Ten years ago, we had around 200,000 motorbikes and 15,000 cars," he said. "Today we have almost twice as many motorbikes and four times as many cars, but our main roads are the same width." During the morning rush hour, a journey of five kilometres across the city centre can now take more than forty minutes.

The plan has three main parts. First, the city will expand its bus network, adding 120 new buses and 15 new routes by 2027. Buses will have their own lanes on the four busiest roads, so that they are not stuck in traffic with other vehicles. Second, parking in the city centre will become more expensive, and several large car parks will be built near bus stations on the edge of the city, where drivers can leave their cars and continue by bus. Third, the department will work with schools and large companies to stagger starting times, so that not everyone travels at the same moment.

Mr Vinh said that building wider roads alone would not solve the problem. "International experience shows that new roads quickly fill up with new traffic," he explained. "We need to give people real alternatives."

Not everyone at the meeting was convinced. Several shop owners in the city centre worried that higher parking fees would drive customers away to shopping malls in the suburbs. Others asked whether buses would really be fast and comfortable enough to persuade people to leave their motorbikes at home.

The department expects the plan to cost around 1.2 trillion dong. About two-thirds will come from the city budget and the rest from private investors, who will operate some of the new bus routes. If the plan succeeds, officials hope that average journey times in the city centre will fall by a quarter by 2030.

A public consultation on the plan will be open until the end of next month, and residents can send their opinions by post or online.