Le Hoang Quan, Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee stated at a meeting on May 19 that Ho Chi Minh City was looking at various measures to regulate daily traffic entering the city and reduce the number of traffic jams and accidents.
Ho Chi Minh City authorities are finding ways to ease traffic jams. (Photo:SGGP)
During the past few days, there have been a number of traffic accidents in the city resulting in some deaths.
At the meeting, Nguyen Ngoc Tuong, deputy head of the city Traffic Safety Department, said that in April alone, there were 71 traffic accidents in the city, resulting in 58 deaths and leaving 27 injured.
Traffic jams in large urban areas such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are caused by shortcomings in four main areas: planning, infrastructure, management and people awareness.
Infrastructure development has not kept up with the growth in population and vehicles. Besides, the failure of regulations by traffic organizations on the roads also causes traffic jams. Infrastructure has not synchronized with growth.
Chairman Quan has asked local traffic agencies to strengthen checking and penalize traffic violators as well as assign teams of police officers and volunteers to clear traffic knots from occurring at trouble spots in the city.
He also asked relevant departments to gather militiamen and volunteers to help with traffic regulations and enhance people’s awareness in traffic.
The HCM City Road Traffic Police Bureau has been asked to put up police stands at turnings that are often congested with traffic.
In an effort to control heavy traffic jams within the city, the city People’s Committee has made a plan to reduce traffic jams during the period 2011-2015.
Under the plan, the city will focus on building traffic infrastructure and develop public transport. More electronic billboards informing drivers of traffic jams will be set up across streets. In addition, the city will increase transport facilities at places with already high frequencies of traffic jams. The city will also pay attention to management and people’s awareness.
Quan said that building 50 new bridges and flyovers is an important target that the city aims at, which will reduce traffic jams during the period 2011-2015.
