Motorcycles will be banned from downtown Hanoi in 2025 in a bid to prevent the city’s traffic woes from getting worse, according to Thanh Nien News Online on Tuesday.
The planned move was agreed upon at a meeting Monday of officials concerned with traffic problem in Hanoi. The officials said that it is necessary for the city to impose stricter measures to contain the rapid increase of personal vehicles and to promote public transport.
They admitted that the number of cars and motorcycles in Hanoi is now too many and that the city has never been able to come up with a durable solution to the problem.
Nguyen Phi Thuong, board chairman of Hanoi Transport and Services Corp which operates the bus service, said the city needs to double the number of buses which currently serve only 8-10 percent of transport demand.
The city now has 1,000 public buses with 27 million passenger rides a month.
A metro system which is now under construction will help ease traffic woes upon its scheduled completion in 2018 if there is no delay. At least five other metro lines have been planned and the construction work will take about a decade.
There are now 5.5 million vehicles in Hanoi, including 4.9 million motorcycles with 8,000-20,000 new motorbikes and 6,000-8,000 new cars registered every month.
Hanoi to ban motorcycles in 2025 to solve traffic crisis - Thai PBS English News