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The Hanoi Highway expansion project from Saigon Bridge to Thu Duc Intersection |
The Hanoi Highway expansion project from Saigon Bridge to Thu Duc Intersection (Thu Duc City) is one key traffic project of HCMC, under the charge of HCMC Technical Infrastructure Investment JSC. The project aims at widening the main route, building a parallel street on each side of this route, along with a new drainage system, a lighting system, trees, and sidewalks.
Beginning in 2010, until now, the main route (from Saigon Bridge to the intersection in front of the main gate of Vietnam National University-HCM) has been in operation; yet the left parallel street has only basically formed (from Rach Chiec Bridge to Station 2 Intersection and from Quoc Huong Street to Rach Chiec Bridge).
The progress of this project is 80 percent, and such prolonged construction leads to increases in the costs of management, equipment, and human resources.
Director of the Management Board for this project Nguyen Thanh Nam shared with SGGP Newspaper that the project cannot be done owing to issues in land clearance. In particular, on the right parallel street, 28 households and Kim Nam JSC. in Tan Phu Ward of Thu Duc City have not agreed to hand over their land (with a surface area of 4,150m2 and 8,652m2, respectively), together with 1 household in Phuoc Long A Ward (surface area of 800m2). On the left parallel street, one household (surface area of 300m2) in Linh Trung Ward has also not been willing to give its land.
Another serious matter comes from the planning overlapping on a surface area of 1,800m2 between this project with 8 elevated stations of Metro Route No.1 (Ben Thanh – Suoi Tien). The construction unit of the Hanoi Highway expansion project has already completed the designed drainage system, the asphalt concrete cover for the Metro project to continue building 5 necessary stations. Workers of both projects are cooperating to continue their tasks in the remaining three stations.
The overlapping situation also happens with the second stage of the city’s sanitation project. Therefore, the construction unit of the Hanoi Highway expansion project finished the work on a 600-meter section from Thao Dien Station to Thao Dien Street so that workers of the sanitation project can continue with building wastewater sewers. At present, both are collaborating to create sewers within An Phu Station.
The section of Hanoi Highway passing Binh Duong Province, in charge by Hanoi Highway Investment and Construction JSC. and the HCMC Management Board for Traffic Works Construction and Investment, only has a part of right parallel street (in front of the new East Coach Station) finished. About 2.2km of the route has not been handed over as 146/201 affected households (on a surface area of 11.5ha) have not received compensation yet.
Director Luong Minh Phuc of the HCMC Management Board for Traffic Works Construction and Investment shared that his organization and the Center for Land Resource Management and Development of Di An Town (Binh Duong Province) have held several meetings to address the land clearance issues; nevertheless, because of inadequacies in land prices, the compensation amounts have not been determined.
Director Nguyen Thanh Nam proposed that to accelerate the progress of the Hanoi highway expansion project, the HCMC People’s Committee should direct related state units to speed up reviewing and approving the adjustment of land clearance for the section passing Binh Duong Province so that compensation distribution can be done quickly. The HCMC Urban Railway Project Management Board is also recommended to accelerate the construction of the stations from Saigon Bridge to the intersection in front of Vietnam National University-HCM.
Thu Duc City leaders have just announced that they have asked for permission from the HCMC People’s Committee to force concerned households to hand over the land after so many times encouraging them to willingly do that without success.
