Heavy load trucks to be limited on Mekong Delta's major bridge

The Department for Roads of Vietnam under the Ministry of Transport has approved a previous proposal by Tien Giang Province to impose the ban on Saturday and Sunday.

However, it is not clear if the department would agree with the timeframe as suggested by the province, which is between 9-11 a.m. and 3-7 p.m. for the direction from Tien Giang to Ben Tre and 3-7 p.m. on the opposite direction, said Nguyen Van Vu, office chief of An Giang’s Traffic Safety Committee.

Stretching 8.3 km long across the Tien River, one of two main tributaries of the Mekong in Vietnam, Rach Mieu is currently the only bridge linking Tien Giang and Ben Tre.

In the first half of this year, 22,000 vehicles used the bridge every 24 hours on average on normal days and 24,000 per 24 hours during the weekend.

As the bridge has just two lanes, it constantly suffers heavy gridlock on both sides, especially when there are trucks moving on it.

To ease overload for the bridge, work started last March to build another bridge across the Tien River.

Named Rach Mieu 2, the new bridge is 17.6 km long and costs VND5.2 ($228.6 million), 

It is scheduled for completion within three years.