Eventually, the tunnel will be operational running under the river in the foreground of the picture. The government aims to use both sides of the river for more development. One day Ton Duc Thang will have no heavy traffic and will become another 'Dong Khoi'. What I envisage for the city is a pedestrian area encompassing Nguyen Hue, Dong Khoi and Lam Son Square. I am no urban planner and maybe it's too late to build the parking that would be necessary, but wouldn't it be nice.....
On top of this newly shaped city center, the construction of the Saigon Metro system should finally have begun. As the widely read International Railway Journal stated in September 2004:
FEASIBILITY studies for two metro lines totaling 21km in Vietnam's largest city, Ho Chi Minh City, are due to be submitted to the government in October. If all goes well, construction could start by the end of this year and the metro could open by 2008.
Let's just say that was a 'little optimistic'. The most recent updates are looking at a 2020 completion date, with 2007 now once again set aside for consulting from foreign companies, as this from Asia Development Bank explains.
The new International Airport at Long Thanh is scheduled to have phase 1 finished by 2010, as this Wikipedia page says, with further development planned into 2015 and beyond. This will allegedly include a high speed road link to the site 40kms from the city.
The most recent big project to be announced is the construction of a high speed rail link from HCMC to Hanoi. This was reported across the world including Auntie. As the article says, it'll cut the journey from a mind boggling 2 days to a much more reasonable 10 hours, and it will only cost $33 billion, and the government claims that it can be completed in 6 years (the contractors want 9, I remember reading). This could become the jewel in the crown of the ASEAN rail network, which is seeking to complete by 2015. As this article from the People's Daily explains, the missing links are mainly in Cambodia -- once finished, the railway will be linked from Hanoi (and therefore into China and beyond to the Trans Siberian) to Singapore.
According to all the dates we are given, these projects will be completed by 2020 - in 13 years time. If it's true, better get your backpacks on and get over here, because horrible roads and never ending train journeys will disappear, replaced with gleaming highways and sleek Japanese style bullet trains gliding effortlessly through the paddy fields. My guess is that there's no need to panic just yet...even all this come 2020 seems like a dream at the moment.
18 comments:
Jon, thanks for a very well researched comprehensive posting. However, you did not cover a project that might be of more immediate impact to you -- the elevated expressway to wind along the Rach Thi Nghe canal right next to your new apartment. This expressway is to be built by a Korean investor in exchange for a plum piece of land for a high-rise tower somewhere downtown. The original site of the high-rise tower was to be be park down by the Ben Thanh market, but there was a public uproar about the project that has delayed the freeway project.
Hey Mel.
You mean that the canal will be filled in and turned into an expressway?! It can only be that because there is no room to run a road alongside. What about the bridges it comes across i.e. Dien Tien Hoang, Bui Nghia, Dien Bein Phu and Xo Viet Nghe Tinh? Is suppose it can go directly underneath them? Certianly the first I've heard of it! When is it due to start?
What a quinky-dink of a post. Yesterday, my housemate showed me the apartment unit he just bought with his future wife. It's rather nice and he really got me interested in going in on an investment, along with other ahem fellow Viet Kieu. What will make this particular suburb even more attractive is that the airrail system will run straight to the Old Quarter! No more drunk motorbiking!
So where is this particular suburb exactly? Like I'm gonna let other people. Pshaw. (Actually Mel probably knows already considering his real estate knowledge).
Thong, I truly hate suburbs. That is why I live in one of the densest neighborhoods of HCMC.
Jon, the freeway winding along the canal is to be elevated. Whether that will require demolition of houses along the canal remains to be seen. Actually, the strip on the Q.1/Q.3 side of the canal is probably wide enough. I think this is a very bad idea. San Francisco tore down its eyesore elevevated freeway along the waterfront after the 1989 earthquake, and everyone realized how bad it had been. I would guess that construction of this travesty would begin no more than three years from now.
Jon, the answer to your dreams for parking downtown is in planning. The City will have a developer (under a Build-Operate-Transfer contract) build a parking garage under Lam Son Square, as covered in the article referenced here
http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=16659
Thong, you already said it's in the old quarter right??!!
We are looking at potentially investing in an apartment if at all possible. 30% down to secure a loan for the other 70% from the Housing something or other Bank. Apartments in some potentially HOT locations (given 10 years or so) are still avaliable for 500,000,000.
It's unbelievable I'm even talking about getting on the property ladder..if I was slaving away in England, I'd be looking at a 25 year mortgage...
Mel - the underground parking sounds like a good idea but I would love to see some pedestrianisation of the city centre - Lam Son square being the prime part of it! As for the freeway, sounds terrible, but looking at its route on my map it would take traffic heading out of the city away from more central roads that are clogged due to this traffic come rush hour...you think?
As a city kid, I'm definitely not a fan of the burbs myself. Although, I will say, there is something very charming about this new development, perhaps it's the lakes within it, all the houses will look different, there will be many storefronts, but with wider streets. I definitely see the possibility of this neighborhood throwing block parties, having mini-concerts. I even caught some cockfighting going on in an empty lot. But time will tell.
I lived in Phu My Hung for three months. Not meaning to diss azngamerboi and friends, but I thought it was the wackest place to be.
Oh Jon, and this development will connect to the old quarter, not be within it. I'll tell you where it is once I get an investment in (1-2 years, crossing fingers).
Jon, this is a very interesting posting for others interested in development of HCMC, so I posted a link to your blog on at the skyscrapercity.com Vietnam forum at
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=448325
(is there a way to make these show up as links?)
Your dream of pedestrianizing downtown Saigon is going to have to face the Vietnamese love affair with motorbikes (like Americans with automobiles). Since motorbikes are relatively small and can go anywhere (including sidewalks), it will be very difficult to convince people to park them and walk. (I am finding it very difficult right now to avoid over-generalizing Vietnamese by saying they don't like to walk -- arghh -- it is difficult to show restraint and not say it!)
Regarding the freeway planned for along the canals, the real goal is get traffic from the airport to downtown or close to it. The current plan dumps cars into the Thi Nhge neighborhood, and eventually across a bridge to Thu Thiem. Shanghai shows a better model, however. They built an elevated freeway over the busy street straight from the airport (the old one) to downtown. The equivalent in HCMC would be straight down Nguyen Van Troi / Nam Ky Khoi Nghia. I believe the intrusion of an elevated freeway would be much less objectionable along that busy commercial corridor, and I think it worked very well in Shanghai. The canals are smelly and messy at this time, but will eventually become a treasured urban parkway. It is a mistake to ruin them at this time with a freeway with many curves slowing down traffic.
Mel -- you think any plan to introduce pedestrianization would be rejected by the people? I think it's something that could be done -- it may not be too popular at first but I think it would grow on people. Don't you think the traffic on that part of Dong Khoi, from Lam Son square to TDT, is not too significant anyway and could easily be diverted.
As for the highway, surely the completion of all four terminals at the Long Thanh site will mean Tan Son Nhat will eventually become a secondary airport. There would be much better ways to create a transport link if needed -- an elevated light rail track for example. The distance is not too far and a train shuttling between the city center and the airport would do, wouldn't it??!!
Before I wrote the post I thought that it would be a good idea to fill in the stinking canal and create a city park area. As far as I can see, traffic on the canal is now redundant.
Jon, haven't you been down Dong Khoi on your motorbike on a Saturday or Sunday night? Get those people off their motorbikes? I would love to see it done, but I don't see it happening in Asian cities. I remember the first time I went to China in the early 90s to plan a high-rise building, and the owner insisted on an auto ramp right up to the front door. We don't do that in western countries, but catering to vehicles is the norm in Asia.
Tan Son Nhat airport will probably remain the airport for domestic flights, which is the same model in Shanghai. Therefore traffic between downtown and the Tan Son Nhat will remain very important for business people. You have the right idea about an elevated rail link, however.
Say, do you smell the canal from your 16th floor apartment once in a while? In the long term, though, people like waterways -- can't you imagine kayaking the canals of Saigon?
Jon, haven't you been down Dong Khoi on your motorbike on a Saturday or Sunday night? Get those people off their motorbikes? I would love to see it done, but I don't see it happening in Asian cities. I remember the first time I went to China in the early 90s to plan a high-rise building, and the owner insisted on an auto ramp right up to the front door. We don't do that in western countries, but catering to vehicles is the norm in Asia.
Tan Son Nhat airport will probably remain the airport for domestic flights, which is the same model in Shanghai. Therefore traffic between downtown and the Tan Son Nhat will remain very important for business people. You have the right idea about an elevated rail link, however.
Say, do you smell the canal from your 16th floor apartment once in a while? In the long term, though, people like waterways -- can't you imagine kayaking the canals of Saigon?
When hip hop (present pop culture influencing consumer habits) culture starts to make walking and pesdestrianism cool, that's when Vietnamese people will walk. Why do you think Hennessy and Johnny Walker Red Label are so in?
I also think it's a subconscious urge to get somewhere as fast as possible - the country has been so marred by war, colonialism, etc., etc., due to it's geopolitical position, that Vietnam hasn't been able to even compete with the likes of say, Thailand, let alone, beat their soccer team. I said it. The country has been waiting much too long for some down time. Seriously. Get up to (these darned unfortunate) global standards and chill out on a beach chair, somewhere over the proverbial rainbow.
$30 billion rail system? is it vanity or indication of wealth? more like showing off and symbol of debt!!! it's like a poor farmer with a Lamborginy parking in his chicken shed.
[Jon, just expressing my opinion on the subject, dont feel obligated to defend...
]
Not sure about the Lamborghini and the chicken shed. Actually most of the projects are funded by the Chinese, Taiwanese, Koreans, French, Canadian (and many more) governments. It is in their interests that the country has a better infrastructure. I read somewhere that some Belgium investment was behind the Hanoi-HCM rail link, but I read elsewhere that the Japs/Koreans want to build it.
Mel - sure, I know Dong Khoi is prime weekend show off territory, but there would still be plenty of places to do that. I saw how much people loved to have a walk around the city when Nguyen Hue was pedestrianized for the TET celebrations -- if the option was there, I'm sure you would see plenty of couples and families out to enjoy a stroll -- the bigger the area the better. I really don't think it's a case of getting people off their bikes, it's a case of there's nowhere for them to get off their bikes. It's catch 22 -- people don't stroll around downtown because it's so chaotic and the bikes make crossing the road with kids in tow not such a great idea.
It would be nice to keep the canal if it could be cleaned. The smell doesn't bother us up here on the 16th - but ground floor is a bit different! I still like the idea of filling it in and making a long green strip. You could include many features - kids parks, gardens etc....
Great article it is. If only all bloggers offered the same content as you, the internet would be a much better place. Please keep it up! Cheers. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your post.
so good
ready
Post a Comment