Hanoi plans 100-km metro network by 2030

In a recent announcement, the Hanoi People’s Committee said the city’s historic first metro, currently the only one running in Vietnam, will eventually be the backbone of the capital’s public transportation network.

The city announcement reported that authorities and contracted partners are striving to finish building and open an operational 96.8 km of rail.

By 2045, the city plans to complete construction of 14 urban railway lines spanning a total of 550 km, according to the released committee statement.

The update released by the committee said the roadmap towards the above goals includes three phases.

The first phase, slated for full implementation by 2030, will require $14.6 billion to build 96.8 km worth of new rail.

Once completed, the 2030 phase of the system will be able to serve 7% of public transportation passengers by providing up to 2.6 million rides a day, according to the committee’s plans.

For the new project’s second phase, slated for completion in 2035, the municipality will need $22.5 billion to construct an additional 301 km of track, stations and depots. Once completed, this phase of the network will be able to handle up to 40% of public transportation passenger demand, providing up to 11.8 million rides a day.

In the final phase, Hanoi authorities, along with contractors and partners, plan to complete construction of the whole of its planned modern urban railway system by 2045.

The committee reported that the completed metro lines would help public transportation meet up to 55% of travel demands.

But in a rare admission of a possible caveat, the city governing body also said the project will require an extraordinary amount of resources, which could present an obstacle in mobilizing funding.

Realistically, leaders know there very well could be hindrances over the next two decades of construction. Previous phases of the building of Vietnam’s new and modern metro lines have already been met with various delays.

As previously planned, Hanoi is expected to have 10 urban railway lines, with nine main routes and one connecting to its satellite cities, spanning a combined total of 397 km of rail. But a recently announced and newly adjusted plan has added four more lines to the agenda, with an extra 150 km of rail.

So far, the capital has only completed 13 km worth of rail along the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line. But updated reports have also said that 12.5 km of the Nhon-Hanoi Station railway line is "about to be completed."

The Cat Linh-Ha Dong line currently serves around 35,000 passengers a day, most of them commuting to school and work.