Starting a pilot of separating car lanes on 2 routes
According to information from the Hanoi Department of Construction, the Department has chaired and coordinated with the Hanoi City Police and related units to agree on a plan to organize lane division for vehicles on the two routes Pham Van Dong and Vo Chi Cong (expected to be implemented from July 1, 2025).
Accordingly, for the Vo Chi Cong route:
The lane division area starts from the entrance to the elevated road to the front of the road leading to the separation of the river from Vo Chi Cong to the Red River dike road ( Au Co street). According to the plan, three external lanes close to the median strip will be arranged as separate lanes for cars. The remaining lanes serve mixed traffic.
The lanes reserved for cars will be separated from the mixed lanes by a hard median strip (steel fence).
On Pham Van Dong route:
The radius of the flow extends from the intersection with Hoang Quoc Viet Street to the roundabout into Ciputra urban area. The plan also arranges two lanes close to the median strip, which is a lane reserved for cars, the remaining lanes are for mixed vehicles.
Similar to the Vo Chi Cong route, car lanes are separated from mixed lanes by a hard median strip.
"On June 20, I passed through Vo Chi Cong route, after the lane was separated, motorbikes went more comfortably, however, there was a long traffic jam in the car lane, especially during rush hour. I don't know if it will decrease in the future or not," said Mr. Nguyen Van Tien (Ba Dinh District, Hanoi).
On social networking sites such as Facebook in the past 2 days, there have also been many opinions about the prolonged congestion after the lane separation. Some people are concerned about whether this pilot will be as successful as previous ones.
Sharing with PV, Mr. Nguyen Chien Thang (Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi) said that the difference this time compared to previous times is that the authorities installed a hard steel median strip (previously a mobile median strip).
"After observing, I see a steel fence quite low, at night I don't know how the reflection is, whether it is easy to observe or not. I also hope that the authorities will equip enough warning signs from a distance so that passersby can understand them," Mr. Thang shared.
The representative of the Department of Construction previously also recommended that during the implementation process, traffic participants need to coordinate and pay attention to observing the construction sites to ensure safety.
Pilots of car lane separation in Hanoi
Hanoi has repeatedly piloted the separation of car lanes but has not brought clear results, and traffic jams are still frequent.
It can be mentioned that from 2010 to 2014, Hanoi installed hard median strips to "forcibly" separate the routes for cars and motorbikes on the streets of Hue, Ba Trieu, Hang Bai, Dai Co Viet, Tran Chat Chan, Giai Phong...
At that time, the median strips were made of concrete. In early 2015, Hanoi decided to remove all hard median strips on the above streets. The leader of the Hanoi Department of Transport at that time explained that because the awareness of traffic participants had improved, cars and motorbikes no longer encroached on the lane, they decided to withdraw the hard median strip.
Up to now, streets such as Giai Phong, Dai Co Viet, Xa Dan... still separate cars and motorbikes according to their own lanes, but this method is applied with signs.
However, in reality, vehicles are still very chaotic between lanes.
Next, from August 2022, Hanoi City will continue to organize a pilot program to separate the lane for motorbikes and cars on Nguyen Trai Street (Nga Tu So - Khuat Duy Tien section, Thanh Xuan District).
However, a series of problems have occurred since then, such as local congestion at intersections, many vehicles crashed into the lane separation strip (mobile median strip), vehicles still went around the lanes... receiving much frustration from the people.
By August 2023, the median strips were dismantled with the reason of agreeing with the traffic diversion plan to serve the construction of the Yen Xa Wastewater Treatment Plant project.
Up to now, when the lots serving the construction of the above project have been dismantled, the separation of private lanes for motorbikes and cars has not been restarted on this road.
