Another delay pushes deadline for Hanoi metro to 2022

Announcing the new deadline, Hanoi authorities said Friday that 99.5 percent of the elevated railway and 61 percent of the elevated stations have been built. The elevated section is scheduled to begin operations in April 2021.

But the underground section is only 5 percent done and work on it expected to be complete in 2022, they added.

The first of 10 trains for the second railway route, designed and manufactured by French contractors, will be delivered July next year instead of March as previously announced.

The total investment capital for the project remains at the VND30.2 trillion ($1.3 billion) announced by the government in 2014.

This is the second delay the Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station project has experienced. Work originally began in September 2010 and was set for completion in September 2017. But early in 2017, Hanoi authorities extended the deadline to 2021.

The route, the capital’s second metro line after Cat Linh-Ha Dong, runs 12.5 kilometers from Nhon area in the western districts of Nam Tu Liem, Bac Tu Liem, Cau Giay via Kim Ma Street to Hanoi Railway Station in the downtown area. It will run 8.5 kilometers on elevated tracks through eight stations and the remaining four kilometers underground.

Hanoi’s first metro line, connecting Cat Linh Station in downtown Dong Da District to the Yen Nghia Station in Ha Dong District, is said to be 99 percent complete, also having missed its deadline several times.