Hoi An People's Committee has collaborated with Health Bridge Vietnam and German Development Agency (GIZ/TUMI) to start the bicycle plan in Hoi An to encourage locals to use bicycles on a daily basis.

Tourist riding bicycle in Hoi An

The project of a bicycle-sharing project in Hoi An won the Global Urban Mobility Challenge Award of the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative held in Leipzig, Germany in May. The German government provided USD178,000 in funding to the project.

The workshop on the development of a comprehensive bicycle plan in Hoi An was held in order to introduce about the project and exchange experiences on October 24. On the next two days, the experts will conduct a field survey and work with local authorities.

Nguyen Van Son, vice chairman of Hoi An hoped that the project would encourage more locals to switch to bicycles. "Sustainable development is a must for an urban area so transportation also becomes an important issue," he said.

According to Son, Hoi An authorities have carried out many measures to protect the environment and historical sites while improving the living standards for the locals.

The project to build Hoi An into a community integrating ecology, culture and tourism was approved in 2009 with goals to develop eco-tourism. According to the project, most of the citizens could walk or ride bicycles to work or to go out in order to limit the number of motorbikes and cars.

However, the number of motorbikes in the city is still high due to the lack of detailed policies and infrastructure.

"The comprehensive bicycle project will start this year and end in May 2019. This is just a first step for new experiments. More plans will be carried out in the future," Son said.

In 2014, Hoi An authorities also encouraged state officials to ride bicycles to work but the plan failed. According to Son, the narrow roads are not ideal for bicycles. He wanted to expand the roads but ground clearance has always been a difficult task. He hopes the infrastructure will be improved for the project.

Dtinews