Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in Vietnam had 370,000 cars and 3.7 million motorbikes in 2008, and the number of registered vehicles in the city increases by 12% each year with about 120 new cars and 1,200 new motorbikes added every day. Meanwhile, parking availability in HCMC's downtown districts is inadequate to meet this demand.
Last year, Tran Quang Phuong, Director of the Municipal Department of Transport for HCMC, said that because parking lots are so few in number and small in area, vehicles mainly park on the roadway. He added that the demand for multi-storey underground parking lots is urgent.
So why has the municipal government still not approved the construction license for HCMC's first underground public parking facility?
This $100-million-plus project for a car park at Le Van Tam Park has been in the planning stages for the last 7 years. The government approved the car park in 2005, and originally it was supposed to be completed in 2007. Finally, in December, the project investor Underground Space Development and Investment Company (IUS) announced that the car park would break ground after Tet, the Lunar New Year, in mid February of this year.
The parking lot is expected to include 5 floors with 72,000 square meters of parking space, which could meet 40% of the parking demand in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.
But last week, Le Tuan, chairman of IUS announced that they had not obtained the construction license yet for the car park. No new date for construction has been set.
I understand that the city may be delaying the project due to concerns over the impact to trees and plants in the adjacent Le Van Tam Park, however, that doesn't seem to be an excuse to delay this much needed infrastructure for 7 years. We all understand about red tape, but Ho Chi Minh City needs to come up with a solution fast.
As a reference point, it only took 6 years to build the Chunnel under the English Channel.
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