National Highway 24 is nearly 190km long, starting from Thach Tru intersection, Mo Duc district (Quang Ngai) and ending in Kon Tum city ( Kon Tum).
The new route has only been invested in and upgraded with 2 main sections: from Km0 to Km32 (from National Highway 1 to Ba To town, Quang Ngai) and the section from Hieu commune (Kon Plong district, Kon Tum) to Kon Tum city. The remaining section is about 58km long, from Ba To town to Hieu commune, and is still a grade IV mountainous road, narrow, degraded, and has many potential risks when traveling.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Lam, a driver on the Quang Ngai - Kon Tum route, shared: "I have been running this route for nearly 10 years. Every time I get on the pass, I get nervous because the road is narrow and the curves are sharp. Trucks going downhill without winning are dangerous. If this route is upgraded, it will be safer and save travel time for people".
According to the reporter's records, this road section has many steep passes, sharp turns, damaged and peeling road surfaces. In particular, the Violac Pass area - the border between Quang Ngai and Kon Tum provinces is considered a "hot spot" for traffic safety risks.
The lack of reflective paint lines, reflective nails, and protective railings makes vehicles move here very slowly, especially during the rainy season, when the fog is thick, limiting visibility.
Mr. Nguyen Phuc Nhan - Director of the Department of Construction of Quang Ngai province - said that the unit has proactively developed a report and proposed a plan to repair and upgrade the traffic axes connecting the two localities, to facilitate traffic and shorten the time.
In the immediate future, in 2025, repairs to damaged locations on National Highway 24 will be implemented with allocated funding. In the following years, repair and maintenance work will continue to be carried out according to plan.
Currently, the entire National Highway 24 route has a large difference in technical standards, with a mix of many different road levels. The 32km section from Thach Tru intersection to Ba To town is a secondary urban and grade III mountainous road, 9 - 27m wide. Meanwhile, the section from Ba To town to Hieu commune, Kon Plong district, 58km long, has not been invested in and upgraded, so it is still a grade IV mountainous road, the roadbed is only 7m wide, many sections are seriously degraded.
The 75km section from Hieu commune to Kon Tum city has been invested in upgrading to the standards of a grade III mountainous road, 9m wide, expanding in urban areas such as Mang Den, Kon Ray and Kon Tum city. This inconsistency makes the middle section a "bottleneck" right in the middle of the route, hindering the transportation and trading capacity of the entire route.
Mr. Nguyen Phuc Nhan said that the Department of Construction proposed the Provincial People's Committee to propose the Ministry of Construction to upgrade 58km of National Highway 24, the section from Ba To town to Hieu commune meets the standards of mountain level III roads, with a 9m wide road according to the plan approved by the Prime Minister and synchronously with the invested sections to meet transport needs.
The project has a total estimated investment of VND2,350 billion, expected to eliminate the current "bottleneck" in traffic.
