Hanoi crafts ambitious plan to ease traffic stranglehold

VietNamNet Bridge – Khuat Viet Hung, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of Traffic Safety, has been cycling to work for the past seven years. As someone who deals with the country’s traffic problems, he feels the need to set an example through his modest efforts to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution in Ha Noi. Physical barriers separating the BRT-exclusive lane (right) from lanes for other vehicles on Le Van Luong St., Ha Noi. — VNA/VNS Photo However, Hung’s choice is an anomaly, as evidenced by the choked roads of the rapidly changing capital city, with motorised scooters zigzagging their ways through dense swarms of traffic. The city’s vehicle inventory includes around 5.5 million motorbikes and 600,000 cars. With the bus system only meeting 10 per cent of demand by the metro area’s 10 million residents, these six million individual vehicles serve more than 80 percent of the need. Vu Van Vien, Director of Ha Noi’s Transport Department, says that if 60 per cent of all available cars and motorcycles in the city travel simultaneously at 20km/h, the space needed to accommodate them would reach 1.34 times what the city’s traffic infrastructure can handle. In the four inner city districts,…

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