In July, the Center for Environment and Development of the University of Oslo (UiO), Norway organized a webinar on Sustainable urban transport in Vietnam: transition, challenges, and future prospects. The webinar looked at the lessons learned from Vietnam’s past and ongoing mobility transformations and tried to find an answer to the question of whether there is a possible future without gridlocked cities packed with cars in Vietnam.
In a recent article published by Vietnam Net, two speakers at the webinar give an Op-ed with very interesting recommendations. The authors of the Op-ed are Norwegian expert Arve Hansen, researcher of UiO, and Nguyen Ngoc Binh – a Ph.D. Candidate at Department of Geography, McGill University (Canada).
In the article, Arve Hansen and Nguyen Ngoc Binh write, “Hanoi is not in a hurry” has become a comforting saying for many people when traveling on the crowded streets of Hanoi. However, given the capital’s rapid growth, megaprojects to expand the road network and upgrade the public transport system have so far brought few landmark changes.”
“It is not possible to find a solution to the transportation problem in Hanoi overnight, but we believe that solutions need to start from a multi-dimensional approach: Not only focusing on improving efficiency and accessibility access to transport services, but also towards the goal of maintaining social cohesion and making the city a livable place in the long run,” Arve Hansen and Nguyen Ngoc Binh writes
In the framework of the article, the two experts give some suggestions to solve one of the most daunting problems of the Hanoi capital today. The article carries the personal views of the authors.
Read the article here
