VietNamNet Bridge – In the next five years, Hanoi will need VND260 trillion, equivalent to $12.9 billion to develop traffic gridlocks, according to the Hanoi Transport Department’s plan.

Under the plan, the city will give priority to build the belt roads 2 and 3, with some sections running overhead. Particularly, the belt road 2, the section running from the Vinh Tuy bridge to Nhat Tan, will be finalized in the next five years to create a complete belt route. The remaining sections of the belt road 1 will be also finished. The construction of the belt road 4 will be implemented.

Notably, Hanoi will build around 40 underground and multi-story parking lots, using modern technology; to deal with the shortage of parking lots in the city. The current parking lots will be upgraded. The total area for parking lots will be around 300-426 hectares.

According to the department, the land for traffic in Hanoi is very limited, which accounts for 7-8 percent of the urban land, while the necessary area must reach 20-26 percent. It asked the city government to make a breakthrough in developing transport infrastructure to solver traffic jams in the city.

The department proposed to invest $13 billion to develop traffic facilities, including one third for building belt roads, $2.5 billion to build major roads inside the city and $790 million to build national highways running to the city center.

The department’s director Nguyen Quoc Hung, said “that capital will be raised from many channels, including the state budget, the city budget and from private sources.”

Tran Duc Vu, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Planning and Development, said “that the capital for this plan - $13 billion – is huge so the city can allocate up to half of the capital.” Vu suggested Hanoi to raise funds for this plan from auctioning the land use right of its land.

Nguyen Van Duc, Deputy Director of the local Department of Construction, said “the transport department needs to estimate the growth of population and personal vehicles in the upcoming years, otherwise its plan will not match with the city’s growth.”

Duc also proposed to restrict the construction of high-rise building in the city and relax population density in the inner area.

The Hanoi Institute for Planning and Construction claimed that it is very difficult to build four belt roads in five years. It is also unfeasible to build such many parking-lots in the city.

Hanoi Vice Chair, Nguyen Van Khoi, agreed with the Transport Department’s plan. He said that Hanoi needs to build more parking-lots at the belt roads 2 and 3, restrict population growth in the center and ask high-rise buildings to have enough parking space for its residents and guests.

PV