Traffic bottleneck in Western gateway of HCMC needs removing

Most vehicles traveling to the Mekong Delta provinces have to go through the roundabout of Nguyen Van Linh overpass in Binh Chanh District to enter the HCMC - Trung Luong Expressway or go along National Highway 1A to the Mekong Delta. Here, there are tens of thousands of vehicles passing by every day but the road surface of National Highway 1, the section from Nguyen Van Linh overpass roundabout to An Lac intersection in Binh Tan District, is too narrow, making traffic in the area often congested. Nguyen Dinh, a service car driver in District 6, who usually travels to the Mekong Delta provinces, said that traffic jam in this area was too familiar.

Due to the narrow road surface and many bottlenecks, the road cannot meet the travel needs of people and vehicles. “The motorcycle lane of National Highway 1 is only 2.5m wide, so many motorbikes encroach on the car lane. This section is narrow, but the road expansion project has not been implemented for many years,” Dinh complained.

Not far away, the National Highway 50 is always congested, and accidents can happen at any time because this is the traffic axis connecting HCMC with the provinces of Long An and Tien Giang and the path to the Da Phuoc Solid Waste Treatment Complex. Living along the National Highway 50 in Binh Chanh District for more than 30 years, Tran Khanh Vinh, 62, said traffic jams happen all day on this route, not only at rush hours.

“Over the years, I have witnessed many accidents on this highway. When I heard about the road expansion project, I hoped that the project would be implemented soon so that traffic through the area would be smooth, reducing traffic congestion for people to travel more conveniently. However, it has not been done yet," Vinh said dejectedly.

Urgently clear bottlenecks

To reduce pressure on the National Highway 1, as well as shorten the travel time from the center of HCMC to the HCMC - Trung Luong Expressway, construction of the road connecting Vo Van Kiet Street to the expressway was started in October 2015. The project, with a scale of 2.7 kilometers long and 60 meters wide, has an investment capital of nearly VND1.6 trillion in phase 1. The road has four lanes with parallel roads on both sides, whose width is 14 meters each.

The starting point of the route is from Tan Kien Intersection (the endpoint of Vo Van Kiet Street intersecting with the National Highway 1 in Tan Kien Commune in Binh Chanh District), and the endpoint connects to Tan Tao - Cho Dem Intersection of the HCMC – Trung Luong Expressway. The project is expected to smoothly connect with many important traffic routes at the Western gateway, such as Vo Van Kiet Street, the National Highway 1, and Kinh Duong Vuong Street. Unfortunately, it has been halted for many years.

According to Mr. Phan Cong Bang, Deputy Director of HCMC Department of Transport, the Vo Van Kiet intersection project will be prioritized for investment to solve traffic jams on the National Highway 1, which is being undergone a review of the legal basis to restart and accelerate the progress. Mr. Bang also informed that some important projects at the gateways of the city would be started this year. When completed, the projects will not only contribute to reducing congestion at the city's gateways but also play the role of inter-regional connectivity. For the Western gateway, the National Highway 50 expansion project will be deployed. The investment capital has been allocated, and the procedures have been speeding up so that construction can be started soon. “The implementation of this project is quite smooth because site clearance is done by a separate project. Up to now, site clearance has reached over 80 percent of the total volume, and Binh Chanh District will continue to carry out the rest," said Mr. Bang. Not only bottleneck-removing projects, but HCMC has also assigned the Department of Construction to implement the transport infrastructure development project in the area. Some investment projects in the period from now to 2030 in the Western region will be prioritized, such as upgrading and expanding the National Highway 1, the section passing through Binh Chanh District to connect Long An and Mekong Delta provinces; upgrading and repairing the connecting road from Nguyen Van Linh Street to the HCMC - Trung Luong Expressway. For the Binh Tien Road Project from Pham Van Chi Street to Nguyen Van Linh Street in District 8 and Binh Chanh District, with a total investment of nearly VND4 trillion, the city requires the project investor to complete the procedures to submit to the competent authority for approval of the investment policy. With such simultaneous implementation of road projects, shortly, the traffic infrastructure in the Western gateway area of the city will be upgraded, helping to shorten the travel time.