Caught in a trap

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Caught in a trap

Posted in: Life in Vietnam in vaophongk16a's Blog

Traffic jams are the scourge of modern urban living, but what can be done to improve chronic congestion in Ho Chi Minh City, asks Hong Nhung.

It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to someone who is young, old, Vietnamese or from overseas, when you ask them what frustrates them the most about Ho Chi Minh City inevitably you will get the same response – the traffic.

No one is surprised when a colleague practically crawls in the door late for a meeting, as Lam Anh from my office does this morning.

“Sorry, I got stuck at the Phu Nhuan intersection,” he says, his face red with either embarrassment or frustration, but possibly both. Like a soldier who has made it back from the wrong side of enemy lines, he explains how the roads and pavements were completely overrun but somehow he made it out alive.

“Between Hoang Van Thu and Phan Dinh Phung, there were so many cars and motorbikes, the air was thick with exhaust fumes and the sound of buzzing engines was awful,” he says, wincing at the horror of it all. “No one could move!”

In such circumstances there’s not much you can do but inch forward, hoping that a gap will magically appear. The traffic lights change from green to red and the traffic just lurches into one mass.

In the end Lam escaped the infamous intersection but the following streets and junctions were also jammed thanks to the typical Ho Chi Minh City rush hour.

Lam admits that he had planned for the traffic jam on the way to work but underestimated just how long it would take. When you get stuck in the middle, sometimes there’s no way out.

Recent research by a group of traffic experts indicates during rush hour two-wheeled vehicles can only reach the speed of 8-10 km/h, while cars get as slowly as 6-8 km/h on highly congested streets. In an increasingly buoyant economy, these days losing time means losing money and people are becoming more visibly stressed on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Road rage is becoming more and more common.

“I often lose my temper in a traffic jam,” admits Trinh Hoai Vuong, a young office worker. As everyone fights for every inch the tension is unbearable and heated exchanges are inevitable.

So What’s been done?

According to the Department of Communications and Public Works of Ho Chi Minh City, there are more than 33 points on the city grid that suffer from frequent and chronic traffic jams.

This list of places to avoid includes Lang Cha Ca roundabout, Nga Tu Phu Nhuan intersection, Hang Xanh roundabout, Nga Sau Phu Dong roundabout, Nga Sau Cong Hoa roundabout, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai- Cach Mang Thang Tam intersection, Hai Ba Trung - Dien Bien Phu intersection, Ha Ba Trung-Vo Thi Sau intersection.

Worst of all is Cach Mang Thang Tam street which runs through Districts 1, 3, 10 and Tan Binh District.

Meanwhile “Paradise city” is downtown on streets such as Dong Khoi, Nguyen Hue and Le Loi where the least amount of traffic jams occur. For salespeople and delivery men, driving around the city is a constant battle of wits.

“Part of my job is going out to meet customers so I always try to plan the best way to avoid traffic jams but often no matter how carefully I plan my trip, I still get stuck somewhere,” says Thu Thao, a sales executive at a shipping and logistics company.

Ho Chi Minh City is now home to nearly 3.5 million vehicles and according to figures released by the Department of Traffic Policemen there are approximately 1,400 newly registered vehicles entering the fray everyday.

An official from Department of Traffic Safety reckons while moving in the traffic, a motorbike would need a space of 3sqm while an average four-seat car needs 22sqm.

But all the streets and roads amount to only about 1.5 or 1.6 per cent of the city’s total area. In other words out of 2,095sqkm – the total area of Ho Chi Minh City – there is only 33,520sqm of space for traffic. So that’s room for just 11,173 motorbikes or 1,524 cars at maximum capacity in a city of around eight million.

“We have had to put up with gridlock for at least two more years,” a lawyer Nguyen Dang Trung recently told the National Assembly.

But when President Nguyen Minh Triet suggested it might be longer than that, Trung quickly revaluated his estimation. “It may take us five to seven years, or even 20 years to work out this problem,” he said.

So what’s the strategy?

While Ho Chi Minh City’s economy is in the midst of a boom, the chronic congestion is inhibiting, even restricting this growth.
Both the authorities and the people on the street regularly discuss possible solutions to this major headache.

Last month, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee proposed seven solutions to ease traffic congestion: intensifying awareness and education of traffic laws, cutting down traffic accidents; dividing streets with more reasonably and scientifically calculated traffic flow; reorganizing urban traffic; managing and constructing traffic infrastructure; intensifying patrols and fines for traffic violations; and developing public transportation and decreasing the number of private transport means.

But tinkering with the city’s traffic flow has already been a controversial affair. Changing streets to one-way streets doesn’t always have the desired effect. Vo Van Tan, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Le Quy Don and Tran Quoc Thao combined with Vo Thi Sau, Dien Bien Phu and Ba Huyen Thanh Quan now form a locked-square street system.

During rush hour, Vo Thi Sau, Dien Bien Phu, Vo Van Tan are blocked with motorbikes, cars, buses and trucks while there is little traffic on Tran Quoc Thao and Le Quy Don streets.

These streets used to be alternative route for traffic from Vo Van Tan or Dien Bien Phu to avoid gridlock but now… well, now there is no escape!

“Traffic on those streets has got worse since July 7 [when the new one-way system was introduced]. Now it takes me 40 minutes instead of 15 minutes to cover a distance of just 2km from where I work on Vo Van Tan street to my house by Tan Dinh church on Hai Ba Trung,” says Thu Thao.

“People often go through red lights but then get stuck in the middle, which only makes matters worse,” she continues. “Or people drive in the car lane, then all the cars and motorbikes end up in one big mess.”

“I think if Vietnamese people drove in a more orderly fashion and respected traffic rules the situation would improve dramatically,” she says.

While that certainly would help, some experts believe you have to look at the bigger picture.

“Solving this problem is not the responsibility of traffic managers only,” says Huynh Xuan Thu, director of Department of Urban Planning and Architecture. “It would never work if we don’t have a vision and a long term traffic management plan.”
According to Thu, the keys to solving this problem are reducing transportation demands and increasing means of transportation.

“We can reduce traffic in the city centre by expanding its outskirts, building residential areas with not only accommodation but also create comfortable living areas with parks, schools, hospitals, restaurants, cinemas, shopping centres and so on,” suggests Thu. “Then people won’t have to come to the city centre. We can even think of applying communication technologies to develop on-line communication, e-commerce or e-learning to reduce transportation demands. We also have to invest in alternative means of public transportation such as metros and buses.”

“Listen Ho Chi Minh City is an urban centre that was built 300 years ago and that met the demands of the time. We need to plan for another modern city for this millennium”.