Impetus for urban railway development

The elevated section of the second urban railway line, Nhon – Ha Noi Station, was officially put into use on August 8. It served more than 306,000 passengers on the first five days.

Meanwhile, the first line, Cat Linh - Ha Dong, transports about 10 million passengers each year.

Currently, urban railways in Ha Noi have gone through the two first stages and are aiming to become popular.

These results are believed to be an important impetus for Ha Noi to strongly develop its urban railway system in the time ahead.

Draft master plan on urban railway development

The municipal People's Committee recently submitted a draft master plan on building urban railway to the municipal People's Council for discussion.

This plan proposes urban railway development be divided into three phases.

From 2024 to 2030, the city will complete constructing 96.8km of railway and make investment preparations for another 301km. More than US$14.6 billion is needed for this period.

And between 2031 and 2035, 301km of railway will be built at a total cost of over US$22.57 billion. The local urban railway system is expected to serve 35 – 40 percent of public transport passengers after 2030.

Meanwhile, Ha Noi plans to complete an additional 200.7km during 2036 – 2045, which requires funding of over US$18.25 billion.

The local administration estimates that by 2035, the city will able to mobilize about US$28.56 billion from different sources for the work and need around US$8.61 billion in assistance from the central budget for the 2026 - 2030 and 2031 - 2035 periods.

Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Ha Minh Hai said one of the most important factors of urban railway development is finance, and the biggest financial resource is the added value from the land traversed by urban railway lines, which could be optimized through transit-oriented development (TOD).

TOD is an urban development model with rapid public transport being the center that is closely connected with the formation and expansion of the urban railway network.

Le Trung Hieu, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Planning and Investment, said that with the recent adoption of the revised Law on the Capital, the National Assembly and the Government have given Ha Noi a "golden key" to address decades-long difficulties and obstacles hampering the development of transport infrastructure, especially urban railway.

The revised law is one of the critical policy frameworks for developing urban railway and the TOD as Ha Noi is granted the right to make decisions about urban railway projects by itself, he noted.

Speeding up 'green' public transport   

The National Assembly passed the amended Law on the Capital, in which, there are regulations on environmental protection and fossil energy conversion.

Ha Noi is the first locality in Viet Nam to issue a resolution to implement the Prime Minister’s decision on green energy transition programme by 2030. 

Accordingly, the city plans to have 50 percent  of its vehicles run on electricity, and the other 50 percent turn into gas-powered vehicles during this period. In 2024, the city gives priority to electric vehicles.

With ten green bus routes operating in the city, Ha Noi has reduced emissions by 36,500 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to planting 1.68 million trees.

Currently, Ha Noi has "green" buses, "green" urban railways and subsidies for people to go green. The Government, the city and businesses are also actively participating in the capital's green transition process./.