HCM City sets plans for traffic revolution

HCM City (VNA) - Suburban rail services and a better bus system will be the main means of transport for Ho Chi Minh City 's 10 million people in years to come, largely replacing the use of motor cycles.

The huge turnaround is necessary it the city is to cope with the big
increase in traffic jams, according to a traffic project approved by the
Prime Minister.

According to statistics, 79 percent of travelers in the city prefer to use
motorbikes and only a few percent opt to use public transport.

The city's 3,2000 buses now carry one million passengers on 151 routes
each day but the system will be built to eventually handle 17 million
passengers daily.

Associate Professor Pham Xuan Mai from the University of Technology 's
Faculty of Traffic Technology said when the city's lane-dividing project was
completed the bus network would only meet one third of demand.

The Department of Transport estimates bus passengers at present comprise
only 6-7 percent of the total city population. This is way behind the 2010
goal of 25-30 percent.

However, many people still refuse to use buses because of the low quality
of service. According to many citizens, some routes have too many buses,
while others have few - or none at all.

The new trafficwill take until 2020 to complete. It will include a bus
network with 48 main routes and 210 secondary routes serving 18 percent of
total demand while metro and suburban rail systems will handle most of the
passenger traffic. The long-term strategy maps out six metro routes, three
suburban routes and four cable-car routes.

Construction has now begun on the first cable-car route along
East-West avenue and the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien metro route.-Enditem