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Construction of a technical maintenance station for Ho Chi Minh City’s metro No 2 began yesterday at Tham Luong in District 12.
The US$1.24 billion Ben Thanh Market – Tham Luong route is expected to be finished in 2016 to become the nation’s first modern mass transit system.
The 19-kilometer system will be funded by loans from German development bank KfW Bankengruppe, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Investment Bank.
Later the route will be expanded beyond the Saigon River to Thu Thiem in District 2 and at the other end to An Suong also in District 12.
It will pass through Districts 12, Tan Phu, Tan Binh, 1, 3, and 2.
The underground system will carry 40,000 passengers an hour, covering the route in around 25 minutes. Commuters will have to pay a flat fare of VND3000.
It will have 10 underground and one elevated stations that will be disabled-friendly.
Work on the route is expected to begin in the next two years using new underground construction technologies that will make it unnecessary to block roads above, Nguyen Van Quoc of the Ho Chi Minh City Management Authority for Urban Railways said (MAUR).
Since the average depth of the metro will be 18 meters -- and 34 meters at the deepest point -- it will not have any impact on buildings and skyscrapers along the route, he added.
The city, which has a population of eight million that could rise to over 10 million soon, plans to build six metro and two monorail routes and a tramway and has identified funding for almost all of them.
A 12.5-kilometer tram route from Bach Dang Pier in District 1 to Mien Tay Coach Station in Binh Tan District has been awarded to Thanh Danh Co and the Malaysia-based Titanium Management.
But city authorities appraised their bid and have asked them to scale down the amount of VND4.2 trillion ($215.7 million). As a result, work on the project cannot start this month as scheduled, Thoi Bao Kinh Te Sai Gon Online (The Saigon Economics Times Online) newspaper quoted Nguyen Do Luong, head of the MAUR, as saying.
If they fail to reach agreement, their license will be revoked, Luong said.
Thai, Chinese, and Czech investors are seeking approval to build metro Nos 3a, 3b, and 4. The Ministry of Construction-run Development Investment Construction Joint Stock Corp and Dat Phuong Joint Stock Co have bid for the monorail No 2 project.
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