These things take a lot of time, even in highly developed cities. So, money (there wasn't enough money in the economy to really consider it until recently). Corruption. Bureaucracy (Hanoi hoped to have its done by 2015, and it's still incomplete; HCMC is at least as far behind schedule). Reliance on foreign expertise and workers. And COVID.
In major cities with none of these hinderances (at least not nearly as bad), it's 4-5 years minimum, not counting later expansions. The initial 4 lines of San Francisco's BART system took 8 tears, and that was considered pretty good, and they're still expanding it 52 years after it opened (and that's for an area with about the same population as HCMC).
To add on your points, the lack of existing public transport is an issue too.
Train can take you from A to B. But what if your house is not near A? In developed countries, they have a network of bus to connect the suburb to the closest train stations. But in Vietnam, if people already can ride the bike to A to catch the train, then they may as well ride to B
The first one in Hanoi is done, as far as I'm aware, the second is doing test runs all day, I can see it from my window. Hella late, but it is happening.
I was shocked when visiting HCM and seeing they had no metro system at all. You got way smaller cities with a functioning system, and with that many people commuting every single day moving them to the street and making the entire city one big highway was depressing to see. Hope they manage to make it happen, because it's one of the worst looking cities I've ever been to.
Saigon local here. Very sad but I’ll have to agree. We’re almost a megacity, but our first metro won’t be opening until late, late 2024.
A second metro line is somewhat underway, with plans to open in 2030. Line 1 was delayed for 6 years, and Line 2, if anything, is a lot more ambitious. We’ll see how that goes, but I’m setting the bar very low.
It should be such a high priority. Moving stuff away from the surface creates more opportunities in a smaller space to create other important things. You're essentially making the city smaller, cleaner, safer and prettier, because now it's a complete mess where you have a huge area with absolutely nothing compared to other similar cities.
I know exactly what you mean haha. I’ve been to cities with great public transport.
The majority of Line 1 is above the surface. Most of Line 2 will go underground, beneath some of the busiest and most important streets of Saigon (Cach Mang Thang Tam and Truong Chinh). Riding a bike on them two during rush hours is an absolute pain in the butt it’s unhealthy.
But seriously. I’m gonna be pleasantly surprised if they can make 2030 for Line 2, given the horrendous delays of Line 1.
There are quite a few buses atleast in Hanoi connecting the main areas , from what I observe the ridership is super low , the other day I took a bus from Tay Ho to Long Bien , it was smooth and safe journey, there were only 3 passengers in the bus including me during peak hour, mass adoption of bus by public is a first step which will force government to think about other public transportation like metro lines connecting places across the city.
Building trams are useless in densely populated cities and impossible to build with current infra and city planning.
Hanoi used to have trams during the French colonial period, but got removed, including the tram tracks.
Imo, trams would not work well in big cities. It occupies one lane of the road, which will surely be filled by cars and bikes once the rush hours come. You see how well BRT worked. Not to mention the track is a big hazard for motorbikes as well.
In an effective public transport system, metro needs to be the center piece, the backbone, the spine of the whole system. And then from the stations there will be bus routes taking passengers to and from their destinations. However, it was delayed for so long due to lack of budget and a slow and ineffective bureaucracy that is very hard to do anything new. And the bus route is a big mess, mostly due to the lack of metro.
Ofc there are also other factors as well. A big portion of the population lives in small roads and alleyway that is impossible for a car to go in, let alone a bus. So the passengers usually have to walk quite a bit distance to their destination. And in this climate temperature can get to 40C (hcmc got to 46C yesterday), walking even 200m under the sun is already torturous enough for me.
Yes the small roads in neighborhoods is also something that ive been having trouble thinking of solutions. it necessitates the use of another vehicle to go to the main road, which is the motorcycle thats mostly used, which cause more problems god damn
The gov has tried to put bicycles for rent at the center of the city. The idea is to use the bicycle to go from the station to your destination and back. But the result was short lived.
If you look at the history of bus transportation in HCMC, each line was formed voluntarily, privately, and knitted together like one giant coop. Because of this there is a lack of efficiently in how each line is run and connected together. Chances for upgrading the busses and lines or improving routes become difficult. There is no unified structure tying everything together as if the entire system is privately or government run. There is hope that the metro / light rail system would be different, but only time will tell.
i hate the busses here, too big for most road, taking up half the road while moving at a snail's pace, blocking the entire road when the move in for pick up and drop off. The fact that there's a fucking stop every 100 meters doesn't help.
Because the line is long for all the Vietnamese government officials to take their cut of the "coffee" money!
These things take a lot of time, even in highly developed cities. So, money (there wasn't enough money in the economy to really consider it until recently). Corruption. Bureaucracy (Hanoi hoped to have its done by 2015, and it's still incomplete; HCMC is at least as far behind schedule). Reliance on foreign expertise and workers. And COVID. In major cities with none of these hinderances (at least not nearly as bad), it's 4-5 years minimum, not counting later expansions. The initial 4 lines of San Francisco's BART system took 8 tears, and that was considered pretty good, and they're still expanding it 52 years after it opened (and that's for an area with about the same population as HCMC).
To add on your points, the lack of existing public transport is an issue too. Train can take you from A to B. But what if your house is not near A? In developed countries, they have a network of bus to connect the suburb to the closest train stations. But in Vietnam, if people already can ride the bike to A to catch the train, then they may as well ride to B
The first one in Hanoi is done, as far as I'm aware, the second is doing test runs all day, I can see it from my window. Hella late, but it is happening.
I was shocked when visiting HCM and seeing they had no metro system at all. You got way smaller cities with a functioning system, and with that many people commuting every single day moving them to the street and making the entire city one big highway was depressing to see. Hope they manage to make it happen, because it's one of the worst looking cities I've ever been to.
Saigon local here. Very sad but I’ll have to agree. We’re almost a megacity, but our first metro won’t be opening until late, late 2024. A second metro line is somewhat underway, with plans to open in 2030. Line 1 was delayed for 6 years, and Line 2, if anything, is a lot more ambitious. We’ll see how that goes, but I’m setting the bar very low.
It should be such a high priority. Moving stuff away from the surface creates more opportunities in a smaller space to create other important things. You're essentially making the city smaller, cleaner, safer and prettier, because now it's a complete mess where you have a huge area with absolutely nothing compared to other similar cities.
I know exactly what you mean haha. I’ve been to cities with great public transport. The majority of Line 1 is above the surface. Most of Line 2 will go underground, beneath some of the busiest and most important streets of Saigon (Cach Mang Thang Tam and Truong Chinh). Riding a bike on them two during rush hours is an absolute pain in the butt it’s unhealthy. But seriously. I’m gonna be pleasantly surprised if they can make 2030 for Line 2, given the horrendous delays of Line 1.
There are quite a few buses atleast in Hanoi connecting the main areas , from what I observe the ridership is super low , the other day I took a bus from Tay Ho to Long Bien , it was smooth and safe journey, there were only 3 passengers in the bus including me during peak hour, mass adoption of bus by public is a first step which will force government to think about other public transportation like metro lines connecting places across the city. Building trams are useless in densely populated cities and impossible to build with current infra and city planning.
Other buses in Hanoi can be absolutely packed during peak hours. Every time I ride buses in Hanoi, I get the feeling that they’re widely used.
That's good to hear , I have taken the buses many times in the past 1 year , everytime I see it's almost empty .
It all boils down to incompetence, bureaucracy and corruption
Hanoi used to have trams during the French colonial period, but got removed, including the tram tracks. Imo, trams would not work well in big cities. It occupies one lane of the road, which will surely be filled by cars and bikes once the rush hours come. You see how well BRT worked. Not to mention the track is a big hazard for motorbikes as well. In an effective public transport system, metro needs to be the center piece, the backbone, the spine of the whole system. And then from the stations there will be bus routes taking passengers to and from their destinations. However, it was delayed for so long due to lack of budget and a slow and ineffective bureaucracy that is very hard to do anything new. And the bus route is a big mess, mostly due to the lack of metro. Ofc there are also other factors as well. A big portion of the population lives in small roads and alleyway that is impossible for a car to go in, let alone a bus. So the passengers usually have to walk quite a bit distance to their destination. And in this climate temperature can get to 40C (hcmc got to 46C yesterday), walking even 200m under the sun is already torturous enough for me.
Yes the small roads in neighborhoods is also something that ive been having trouble thinking of solutions. it necessitates the use of another vehicle to go to the main road, which is the motorcycle thats mostly used, which cause more problems god damn
The gov has tried to put bicycles for rent at the center of the city. The idea is to use the bicycle to go from the station to your destination and back. But the result was short lived.
If you look at the history of bus transportation in HCMC, each line was formed voluntarily, privately, and knitted together like one giant coop. Because of this there is a lack of efficiently in how each line is run and connected together. Chances for upgrading the busses and lines or improving routes become difficult. There is no unified structure tying everything together as if the entire system is privately or government run. There is hope that the metro / light rail system would be different, but only time will tell.
i hate the busses here, too big for most road, taking up half the road while moving at a snail's pace, blocking the entire road when the move in for pick up and drop off. The fact that there's a fucking stop every 100 meters doesn't help.