Vinh City: New look of urban traffic

(Baonghean) -GTraffic is the key and most important issue of the city, ensuring both the traffic flow and the urban aesthetic function and the synchronization of infrastructure. With the function of being the regional center of the North Central region, Vinh has many advantages to develop traffic, reduce traffic congestion and ensure the development of a type 1 city.

Quang Trung Street, Vinh City.

If you go on a business trip to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City for a few days, especially in the summer, many people will feel like they want to return to Vinh immediately, to walk on wide streets without traffic jams, to escape the suffocation of traffic jams and dust. Vinh - a first-class urban area under the province was born later, so it has planned a transportation network with a diverse and spacious infrastructure system, creating a hub for connecting and exchanging with localities inside and outside the province. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thuy - Lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration, said when working in Vinh: "Vinh streets are wide, trees are starting to provide shade. The sidewalks on both sides of the road have been paved with clean bricks, creating an airy city". Not only Ms. Thuy but many other tourists and foreign experts coming to Vinh have the same feeling. The traffic system has been expanded a lot, especially in the city belt, the streets built later are planned with many lanes, ensuring traffic for many vehicles.

During more than 8 years of implementing Decision No. 239 of the Prime Minister on building Vinh into the center of the North Central region, a series of roads and traffic works have been invested in and are being newly built as well as upgraded and renovated, such as National Highway 46 avoiding Vinh City; Vinh - Cua Lo Avenue, Vinh - Cua Hoi Road; main routes along Lam River, Ben Thuy 2 Bridge, Bac Vinh and Nam Vinh bus stations; renovating and expanding Vinh Airport; building a new stop and parking center in the city; renovating Ben Thuy Port, Lenin Avenue with 6 lanes connecting the province's administrative agencies to Vinh Airport. Vinh Airport connects with National Highway 46 to Cua Lo just over 12 km. The eco-tourism road along Lam River surrounds Vinh City to enhance the synchronization and convenient traffic connection between Vinh, Nghe An with localities in the region and internationally.

In the inner city, the traffic system of wards and communes is reasonably planned into chessboard squares, convenient and ensuring water supply and drainage during floods. The inter-ward and inter-commune road system has mostly been concreted, security and order are increasingly ensured. Neighborhoods are planned according to specific industry functions, creating craft streets such as Dang Thai Than "fashion" street, "night food" street at the Ancient Citadel Gate, "finance and banking" street on Quang Trung street, "information technology" street on Minh Khai street, "wooden furniture" street on Tran Phu street...

Vinh City has promoted the strength of comprehensive transportation from railways, roads, airways, waterways, public transport such as buses, sidewalks for pedestrians... The mechanisms and policies of the Central and the province always create opportunities for Vinh to invest and develop appropriately. From 2005 to 2012 was a period of brilliant development of Vinh's transportation with many newly invested and built routes. Currently, Vinh is investing in the construction of the overpass project of National Highway 46 with the North - South railway (Cua Nam ward), with a total investment of about 450 billion VND. The bridge is permanently designed with reinforced concrete and prestressed reinforced concrete with a span of 11 spans, including 1 span over the railway of 24m and 10 approach spans of 33m, with a total width of 20m.

Vinh Airport is being built as an international airport with a continuously increasing frequency of domestic flights. In early 2014, Vinh Airport opened an international flight route Vinh - Vientiane. This is a significant comparative advantage of the city in the process of developing into a center of the North Central region.

According to statistics, the volume of goods and services transported in the period 2006 - 2013 in Vinh City increased by an average of 17.2%/year (from 2.3 million tons in 2005 to 7 million tons in 2013); the volume of passengers transported by road and waterway increased by an average of 20.4%/year in the same period (from 1.8 million passengers in 2005 to 6.6 million passengers in 2013); air transport increased from 257 thousand passengers in 2009 to 1 million passengers in 2013; revenue from passenger transport and services increased from 135 billion VND in 2005 to 760 billion VND in 2013; passenger, goods and services transport activities attracted and created jobs for about 6 million workers inside and outside the city.

Although Vinh City's traffic is spacious, diverse and basically meets the needs of travel, freight transport, and North-South traffic, in general, the traffic works in Vinh still lack highlights, modernity and aesthetics. Many projects are stalled in site clearance and prolonged construction. Compensation for site clearance on routes such as 72m Vinh - Cua Lo, National Highway 1A is prolonged and causes waste of human and material resources of the State. The economic recession has caused the implementation capital to be cut, investment in traffic is waiting for the State without promoting the socialization in investment in construction works.

Traffic jams have begun to occur, especially at the intersections of the train station, the triangle flower garden, the Vinh market... on some days, during rush hours. Traffic safety and order on the roads in the city are still limited. The arrangement of parking and stopping points for vehicles and underground bus stations has not been implemented. Vinh City has the advantage of having Lam River and Dung Quyet Mountain, but has not yet promoted these advantages in traffic infrastructure and architecture to create attractive tourist destinations. At roundabouts, intersections, five-way intersections, Vinh bypass intersections... the sign system is not complete. Some inner-city roads still have potholes. In addition, the traffic network has not taken into account the "regional center" factor, there are no roads with beautiful architecture and landscape. The green tree system is mostly small, the grass is monotonous, and has not attracted people's awareness in caring for and investing in street trees. In particular, the environmental sanitation work in Vinh City has not been done well; construction projects cause a lot of dust; many garbage collection points are located right on the roadside, spoiling the urban beauty. People still litter indiscriminately. These are limitations that need to be corrected.

Chau Lan