But for the people of the Capital, the question is not about the scale of capital, but about the actual effectiveness, will millions of billions of VND end the congestion?
On peak days, many key streets are almost "frozen".Motorbikes and cars jostle each other, moving meter by meter in dust and horns.Many people spend hours just to travel a few kilometers.
However, immediate solutions are often only for coping, diverting traffic, adjusting traffic lights, and closing roads by the hour.When traffic volume increases suddenly, all short-term options are overloaded.
According to the new direction, Hanoi will disperse traffic outside the inner city, add inter-regional connection routes with neighboring provinces, develop urban railways, especially exploit metro lines. When there is convenient and on-time public transport, people are willing to abandon personal vehicles.
Hanoi is also studying a "chessboard box" traffic structure to increase connectivity between new and old urban areas, renovating dilapidated streets, and rebuilding degraded areas is also a necessary direction. This is the right direction, because many local congestion points currently stem from a lack of horizontal connection infrastructure, and all traffic flow is concentrated on some main axes.
But, the problem is not just money, but progress and implementation discipline.
Reality shows that many previous transport projects were behind schedule, over budget, causing waste of social resources. If that scenario is repeated, more than 2.6 million billion VND will also be difficult to create substantive changes.
Therefore, what people expect is not only grandiose plans, but also clear progress commitments, transparent monitoring mechanisms and specific responsibilities of each implementing unit.
Besides infrastructure investment, Hanoi cannot avoid solutions to manage personal vehicles, develop green traffic, and raise traffic participants' awareness. Infrastructure, no matter how wide it is expanded, will quickly become overloaded if vehicles continue to increase uncontrollably.
Spending more than 2.6 million billion VND is a big decision, but budget money must be converted into smooth routes, on-time metro trips, journeys that are no longer tired of traffic jams.
When determined to invest on an unprecedented scale, the city must act even more drastically, transparently and effectively.
