After merging with Binh Duong and Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City is managing more than 12.8 million vehicles, including more than 1.4 million cars and nearly 11.4 million motorbikes, not including the number of vehicles passing by from other localities.
Meanwhile, the existing parking area of the city is only about 2.69 ha, compared to 550 ha that have been planned, equivalent to 0.5%.
The shortage of parking spaces is one of the reasons for increasing inner-city traffic congestion, because many vehicles have to park rampant on the road or drive around looking for parking spaces.
On March 14, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction said that it is coordinating with relevant agencies to review and study plans to build underground parking lots in some large parks such as Ly Thai To Park, September 23 Park and Le Van Tam Park.
In addition, a business is researching a Ben Thanh underground complex project with a scale of about 12.5 hectares, including an underground parking lot, a commercial - service area and a central metro station, directly connected to Metro Line 1 (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien).
In fact, more than 10 years ago, the city planned 4 underground parking lots in the central area, including Le Van Tam Park, Tao Dan Park, Trong Dong Stage and Hoa Lu Stadium, with a total capacity of about 6,300 cars and 4,000 motorbikes. However, these projects have not yet been implemented.
In which, the underground parking project at Le Van Tam Park with a total capital of about 110 million USD was once organized for groundbreaking but then had to stop implementation.
The parking lot project at Trong Dong Stage has a total investment of about 900 billion VND, with a scale of 700 car and 400 motorbike parking spaces, although investors have expressed interest, it has not yet been implemented due to obstacles in planning and investment procedures.
In addition to underground parking lots, recently the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee also directed to prioritize the development of multi-story integrated parking lots using smart technology in the central area.
Previously, from 2023, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport (now the Department of Construction) proposed 4 land areas that could be used to build semi-automatic multi-story parking lots, including: a part of Le Lai street; the area in front of Le Van Tam Park; a part of Cho Lon Bus Station; Hai Thuong Lan Ong street area.
The total area of these land plots is expected to be more than 1,500 m2, which can accommodate about 350 cars with fewer than 9 seats and 200 motorbikes.
According to the assessment of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction, the multi-story prefabricated parking lot model has many advantages such as not needing a large area, lower costs compared to underground parking lots, fast installation time and can increase the number of parking spaces by adding more parking blocks. This system can also be dismantled and moved to another location when necessary.
According to Dr. Tran Quang Thang - Director of the Institute of Economics and Management of Ho Chi Minh City, in the context that underground parking lot projects have not been implemented for many years, multi-story prefabricated parking lots are an urgent solution to solve parking demand in the central area. The city should survey areas with high parking demand to arrange suitable works.
Mr. Thang said that this model has been applied in many major cities around the world, helping to save space and effectively utilize urban land funds. At the same time, low investment costs and fast implementation time also help increase the ability to attract investors.
