As the traffic-clogged company hub celebrated the opening of its first-ever rail line after years of delays, dozens of selfie-taking Ho Chi Minh City people crammed into train cars on Sunday.
Along the$ 1.7 billion line, which starts almost 20 kilometers ( 12 miles ) from the city center, large queues abounded at every station, with couples clutching young children waiting eagerly and women wearing traditional” ao dai” attire and soldiers in uniform.
Office employee Nguyen Nhu Huyen snatched a picture in her crammed train car,” I know it’s late, but I also feel so very honoured and proud to be one of the first on this metro.”
” Our city is now on line with the other large cities in the world,” she said.
It took 17 times for Vietnam’s professional money to reach this point. The initiative, funded largely by Chinese state funding, was first approved in 2007 and slated to charge merely$ 668 million.
Officials promised the series would be operational in only five years when building began in 2012.
But as difficulties mounted, vehicles and scooters multiplied in the area of nine million people, making the district greatly congested, increasingly polluted and time-consuming to understand.
According to city deputy president Bui Xuan Cuong, the rail “meets the growing travel requirements of people and helps to reducing traffic congestion and economic pollution.”
Cuong acknowledged that officials had to overcome” many obstacles” to move the project past its goal.
– ‘ Frustrating’ disruptions-
According to state media reports, the metro was delayed because of” slower capital allocation, unexpected technical difficulties, staff problems and the Covid-19 pandemic”.
With only 14 place stops, the route’s “impact may be limited in the little work,” warned doctor Vu Minh Hoang of Fulbright University Vietnam.” The delays and cost overruns have been frustrating.
However, it is still a “historic achievement for the city’s urban development”, he added.
With lessons learnt,” the construction of future lines will be increasingly easier, faster, and more cost-efficient”, Hoang told AFP.
After three years fighting American troops in the city’s famed Cu Chi tunnels, veteran war officer Vu Thanh, 84, told AFP he was relieved to return to the train and had experienced the underground network’s famed underground in a more positive way.
It reminds me a lot of the experience I had in the shadows years ago during the war. It’s so bright and nice here”, he said.
Reflecting on the delays, he added:” We built the tunnels to hide from our enemies in the past, so building a tunnel for a train should not be that hard”, he added.
” Finally, we made it”!
