City wants seven metro lines in 2020 to curb congestion

The HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR) said the city is striving for solving traffic congestion by completing all seven metro lines by 2020 with a total budget of over $11 billion.

Nguyen Do Luong, head of MAUR, told the Daily late last week that construction and preparations for all these projects were accelerating alongside financial arrangements for the projects.

At the moment, the city has already started work on three metro lines comprising the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien route, the Ben Thanh-Tham Luong route, and a route between Ben Thanh and Mien Tay Bus Station.

Luong said the metro projects are either undergoing site clearance or financial arrangement, but stressed the seven metro lines could likely be completed by 2020 as site clearance for the metro lines has been quicker than previously.

“Under a recent instruction of the city’s chair, Thu Duc District’s authorities are told to complete site clearance by this end of the year so that construction of Long Binh depot of the first metro line can be started,” he told the Daily after the city’s Department of Transport issued a report outlining preparations for metro projects.

Luong commented that site clearance for Long Binh depot of the first metro project between Ben Thanh and Suoi Tien had lagged behind although construction on the depot had been started since early 2008.

Nguyen Trong Hoa, director of the HCM City Institute for Development Studies, told the Daily late last week that he doubted the completion of all seven metro projects within the next ten years given the low construction tempo for the first project.

Hoa said that besides developing metro lines, the city needed to restructure the whole urban infrastructure system in combination with the development of other facilities such as hospitals, universities, and offices if the city wanted to solve its worsening traffic problem.

Furthermore, to ease traffic congestion, Hoa said, the city people must gradually change their habits for using commuter transport means instead of private vehicles.