HCM City faces a shortage of parking lots. VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hai

The districts will evaluate the feasibility of the plans and propose solutions to overcome existing shortcomings and new directions suitable for the city’s development until 2040.  

The department has reviewed 1,141 hectares of land for public parking lots approved by the Prime Minister in the city’s transportation development plan. It said that none of these areas has met the Ministry of Construction’s standards.

According to the standards, parking lots need to be built in industrial parks, and in urban areas, underground parking lots or multi-storey above-ground ones would be allowed, but safety and coordination with other construction works must be ensured.

Because the city faces a shortage of parking lots, many buses and cars spill out onto streets, occupying roads and obstructing traffic.

For many years, the city has planned to build four new bus stations at the city’s gateways in order to reduce traffic pressure in the inner city. However, only one station, a new eastern bus station in District 9 covering an area of ​​16 hectares, has opened.  

Because of difficulties in capital sources, construction of the remaining three bus stations has not been carried out.

These include the 15-ha Song Tac Bus station (also called Eastern Bus Station No.2) in District 9’s Truong Thanh and Long Truong wards, a new 14-ha Western Bus Station in Binh Chanh District’s Tan Kien Commune, and a 24-ha Xuyen A Bus Station in Hoc Mon District.

These large-scale stations will be connected to future metro routes.

The old 6.2-ha Eastern bus station in Binh Thanh District will be used to become a bus interchange station in the city. City agencies are considering adjusting the scale of land use at the bus station under a decision of the Prime Minister.

The areas for parking lots in the city’s centre cover nearly 8.9 ha. Of these, 7.55 ha are in District 1.

Parking lots are planned to be built underground at Le Van Tam Park, Trong Dong Music Stage, football stadium in Tao Dan Park, and Hoa Lu Stadium.

However, only the underground parking lot in Trong Dong Music Stage is under construction, and the HCM City Department of Transport has terminated a contract with the Investment and Development for Underground Space Corporation (IUS) to build an underground parking lot at Le Van Tam Park.

The other two lots are considering changing their investment mode from the BOO (build, own, operate) model.

As of June, the city had more than 8.1 million vehicles including 768,346 cars. VNS

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