Hanoi has approved a feasibility study for a road and pedestrian tunnel in the city’s Hoàn Kiếm district, the capital’s financial and commercial centre.
The project, which will have a capital investment of around US$4.3 million, will see local traffic travel under a main four-lane highway through a tunnel which will be just under 16m long and just over 3m high. It will connect Tran Nguyen Han and Chuong Duong Do streets.
Construction is expected to start later this year.
The country has been slower than the government expected in transforming its highway infrastructure into a modern system, according to an article earlier this year by VnExpress, an online newspaper run by FPT Corporation.
Vietnam has taken 17 years to build 1,163km of expressways, far short of the original goal to have 5,870km to be built by 2020, noted the article. The construction of Vietnam's expressways was planned in the early 2000s to connect the country’s commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City with the agriculture and aquaculture hub Mekong Delta and neighbouring localities.
In 2004, work began on the country's first expressway – the 61km Ho Chi Minh City to Trung Luong Expressway. It took six years to complete and relieved congestion and improved travel times. However, it remains the only expressway to connect Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, the article said.
