I grew up in Saigon. They had just started construction on this line when I left in 2012, and in the many times I visited since it was very clear how slow the progress was. Unfortunately that’s just the way of things in Vietnam, and this project was completely overrun by corruption to an extent that even by Vietnam standards was shocking.
That said, it’s awesome to see it finally done. It’ll be a huge boon to the city, which sorely needs it. When I first went to Vietnam, you would rarely see a car that wasn’t a taxi. When I last visited, the traffic jams were insane. And there has been a systemic widening of roads and demolishing of homes to help accommodate that increasing usage of cars. The same nonsense we all know ruined cities in the west decades ago. But finally having a viable alternative to driving is so excellent news for what is the 5th largest economy in Southeast Asia.
At last! Relief for a great city choking from the exhaust of literally millions of combustion scooters.
One day those scooters will finally go electric, as they already are in nextdoor China. Combined with the reduction in traffic that the metro will bring, I think this will change everything. With its beautiful French colonial buildings and its walkable communist boulevards, Saigon-HCM will be the most pleasant big city in the region.
This is such a weird descriptor to me. I don’t think I treat capitalism as the default anymore, and I still wouldn’t look at a Dutch city and think “What beautiful, capitalist boulevards.”
In that case read it as “authoritarian boulevards”. Top-down regimes love wide streets which can comfortably fit tanks and parades. This is not an original observation, fascist countries have had them too. Vietnam is a deeply repressive state with no opposition parties allowed.
But if you take the cars (and of course tanks) out of them, wide boulevards can be really pleasant places to walk. That’s all I was saying.
Eyyy good for them!!! Metros r so cool!
