Restricting personal vehicles: Banning is not enough

Limiting personal transport must go hand in hand with developing reasonable public transport.

According to the plan, from now until the first quarter of 2014, 5 major cities, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Can Tho, Hai Phong, will work with the Ministry of Transport to review the planning and transport management projects in the area to develop an action program with a specific roadmap for the reasonable development of means of transport in urban areas.

This information has attracted special attention from people for more than a month now, especially in big cities in our country, which is known as the "land of two-wheeled vehicles". Many opinions expressed concern that if personal vehicles are limited, what means of transport will people use when public passenger transport cannot meet travel needs. However, this is something that cannot be avoided if we want to develop modern civilized cities.

Limiting personal vehicles must go hand in hand with developing reasonable public transport (Illustration photo)

Crowded streets during rush hour, hundreds of long traffic jams; the air is suffocating with dust and vehicles; each year more than 10,000 people die in traffic accidents... A series of urgent problems are making road traffic in Vietnam one of the most urgent topics.

In Hanoi alone, the annual growth rate of private cars increases by more than 17% and motorbikes increase by an average of 11%/year. In Ho Chi Minh City, the rate is even higher. Imagine if the growth rate of private vehicles is as steady as that, what will the urban space be like in just 5-10 years? At that time, on major streets during rush hour, vehicles will have to move little by little, and public buses will also have difficulty moving. That prospect is certainly not desirable for anyone.

However, when this policy was introduced, there were many concerns about how people would travel. This concern is not without basis as the habit of having to use a vehicle for any purpose has become “deeply ingrained” in people; in addition, the current public transportation in big cities only meets less than 10% of people’s travel needs.

The second reason is much more important. According to statistics from the Ministry of Transport, currently, public passenger transport in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City only meets 9-10% of people's travel needs. In Hai Phong, Da Nang, and Can Tho, this rate is from 1% to 2%. With cities that only meet 1-2% of travel needs by public transport like that, calculating alternative means of transport for the remaining 98-99% is a very difficult problem at this time.

However, it is not impossible if the goal of improving the quality of life for urban residents is considered a top priority. There are few places where the death rate from traffic accidents is as high as in Vietnam, with more than 30 people dying on the road every day. It is truly a heartbreaking number. In addition to the cause of low awareness of traffic law compliance, there are also causes due to weaknesses in urban traffic organization, especially the excessive explosion of personal vehicles.

So is it really that difficult to limit personal vehicles? Guangzhou City (China) now has almost no motorbikes in the city. To do this, 5 years before the motorbike ban, the city government had to focus on investing in public passenger transport so that 5 years later, this system would be ready to meet the travel needs of the number of people who still regularly use motorbikes. Then the city government had to buy back motorbikes from people to regulate them to other cities. And they succeeded.

Mr. Tran Danh Loi, former Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Transport, affirmed that such solutions can be completely applied to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City if we have time to prepare carefully, including mobilizing people to invest in public transport.

According to experts, banning alone is not enough. Restricting personal vehicles must go hand in hand with developing reasonable public transport and reorganizing urban transport, including static transport, underground transport and elevated road systems.

We have had successful lessons in completely limiting cyclos in big cities, or banning tractors (farm vehicles) from running in the city because this type of vehicle has caused many accidents. The remaining problem is that the preparation time must be thorough, the solution must be synchronous and resolute. Once public transportation in the city is both convenient and modern, surely people will not want each person to take a motorbike out on the street, jostling in the dust and traffic jams and "betting" their fate with traffic accidents./.

According to VOV.online