Hanoi suffers VND 12,800 billion loss due to traffic jams

On July 3, the fourth session of the 15th Hanoi People's Council Meeting officially opened with the participation of Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, Member of the Politburo, Chairwoman of the National Assembly.

At the first session, a series of unsolved issues in Hanoi have been analyzed and discussed, with a focus on solutions to the current congestion situation in Hanoi, which causes a loss of VND 12,800 billion per year to the capital city.

Hanoi has various issues barring its development, including possibility of lagging behind in terms of urban management, said delegate Nguyen Phi Thuong.

“Traffic congestions in Hanoi deprive the city of over VND 12,800 billion every year. Thus, it is important and urgent to restrict personal vehicles. Otherwise, Hanoi will miss the chance to curb and control traffic jams and environment pollution because the development and capacity of the city’s transport infrastructure fails to have kept pace with the sharp rise in personal vehicles,” said Thuong.

According to Thuong, Hanoi is now home to 5.2 million motorcycles and scooters and over half million cars. If 60% of the number of vehicles participate in traffic at the same time, they will exceeds 1.34 times the traffic infrastructure capacity (the situation is even much worse in central parts of the city). In the period of 2011-2016, the urban road growth rate was only 3.85% in length and only 0.25% in area, and land for new traffic infrastructure was over 7.5% far below the set target of 25%. Meanwhile, personal vehicles increased over 10% per year.

Regarding solutions, according to Thuong, it is important to provide support for people to shift from personal means of transportation to public ones. In addition to curbing personal vehicles, it is necessary to raise quality and effectiveness of public transportation, including buses and urban railway.