VietNamNet Bridge - La Xanh JSC has suggested building a system of floating parking lots on rivers and canals in the inner city of Hanoi to solve the shortage of land for car parks.

In a letter to Hanoi’s leaders, Mai Trong Tuan, director of La Xanh JSC, said there were two areas suitable for floating parking lots with capacity of 20,000-30,000 cars.

The first area includes three rivers and one canal - To Lich River (from Linh Dam Lake to Hoang Quoc Viet Road), Lu River (from Nghiem Xuan Yem street to Nam Dong Lake), Set River and Kim Nguu Canal.

As per Tuan’s calculation, the average width of the rivers is 25 meters, so if building parking lots with the width of 18-20 meters and height of 20 meters (6-9 floors), each parking lot will contain 120 cars. 

And if there is one parking lot every 500-1,000 meters, there would be 120 parking lots on rivers with the minimum capacity of 14,400 cars. 

Meanwhile, the parking lots only occupy one-sixth of total canals’ surface areas and they won’t block the flow.

The second area, as suggested by Tuan, is the middle alluvial ground of the Red River, north of the central area of Hanoi. 

La Xanh JSC has suggested building a system of floating parking lots on rivers and canals in the inner city of Hanoi to solve the shortage of land for car parks.

There could be a system of multi-story parking lots in different shapes (round, square and rectangular), which would be the architectural works to ‘compete’ with multi-story buildings on the two banks of the river.

The area would serve parking demands in the districts of Ba Dinh, Hoan Kiem and Tay Ho (more than 10,000 parking seats). And if it is well designed, it would be a destination for tourists, especially when it nears the Ceramic Road.

Tuan pointed out a lot of advantages of the project. Parking lots won’t occupy land areas in the central districts, while they won’t affect the drainage and evaporation.

If the city’s authorities approve the project, it will not have to pay money to compensate households for site clearance or build new roads.

The suggestion to build parking lots on rivers and canals was once made by Tuan to the HCMC authorities 10 years ago. It would have been a system associated with 10-story shopping malls on the Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe Canal.

The idea was applauded by Tran Quang Phuong, then director of the Transport Department. The then Vice Mayor Nguyen Thanh Tai instructed relevant agencies to find suitable positions for the parking lot system, but the plan never materialized.