Radical proposal to limit Hanoi's motorcycle traffic

The draft said that Hanoi should “gradually reduces the number of private vehicles and aims to stop operations of motorcycles by 2025.”

Traffic jam in Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh

Vu Cao Minh, secretary of Thanh Xuan District, claimed that Hanoians are using more and more electric bicycles and electric scooters, so the two types of vehicles should also be reduced by 50 percent by 2025. In addition, waterway transportation, for example on the To Lich River, (which is known for its high level of pollution), could be improved to facilitate travel in the city.

This isn’t the first time Hanoi has set a target to limit the number of private vehicles in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion. However, no feasible measures have been introduced yet.

At a government online meeting, chairman of Hanoi’s People Committee Nguyen Duc Chung asked for a plan to be developed to reduce private vehicles in the city. The chairman said that over the next four or five years, traffic in the city will only get worse. He predicted that Hanoi will have about one million cars and seven million motorbikes on it's streets.

Data from the city’s Traffic Police Department for the first eight months of 2015 showed that Hanoi had about 140,000 newly-registered motorbikes in that period, taking the total to nearly five million, not to mention the number of vehicles from other provinces.