Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City celebrates its first metro line

Thousands of selfie-taking Ho Chi Minh City residents crowded into train carriages on Sunday as the traffic-choked business hub celebrated the opening of its first metro line after years of delays.

There were huge queues at every station on the $1.7 billion line, which runs about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city center – filled with women in traditional “ao dai” attire, soldiers in uniform and carrying small children. Couples were excitedly waiting to board the train.

“I know it (the project) is late, but I still feel very honored and proud to be the first in this metro,” office worker Nguyen Nhu Huyen said in a selfie in her packed train car. Said after taking it.

“Our city is now at par with other big cities in the world,” he said.

It took 17 years for Vietnam’s commercial capital to reach this milestone. The project, funded largely by Japanese government loans, was first approved in 2007 and was set to cost $668 million.

A train of Line 1 of the HCMC Metro is seen passing residential buildings in Ho Chi Minh City on December 22, 2024.

A train of Line 1 of the HCMC Metro is seen passing residential buildings in Ho Chi Minh City on December 22, 2024.

When construction began in 2012, officials promised that the line would be operational in five years.

But as delays grew, so did the number of cars and motorbikes in the city of 9 million people, making the metropolis increasingly congested, polluted and time-consuming to navigate.

The city’s vice mayor, Bui Xuan Cuong, said the metro “meets the growing travel needs of residents and contributes to reducing traffic congestion and environmental pollution.”

Cuong acknowledged that officials had to overcome “countless hurdles” to complete the project.

According to state media reports, the metro was delayed due to “slow capital delivery, unexpected technical problems, personnel difficulties and the Covid-19 pandemic”.

“The delays and cost overruns have been disappointing,” said Vu Minh Hoang, a professor at Fulbright University Vietnam, who warned that with only 14 station stops, the line’s “impact in reducing traffic will be limited in the short term.”

People board a HCMC Metro Line 1 train at a subway station in Ho Chi Minh City on December 22, 2024.

People board a Line 1 train of the HCMC Metro at a subway station in Ho Chi Minh City on December 22, 2024.

However, it is still “a landmark achievement for the city’s urban development”, he said.

With lessons learned, “construction of future lines will be easier, faster and more cost-effective,” Hoang told AFP.

Back on the train, 84-year-old war veteran Vu Thanh told AFP he was happy to experience underground in a more positive way after spending three years fighting American troops in the city’s famous Cu Chi tunnels, a vast underground network. Were.

He said, “It feels very different from the underground experience I had years ago during the war. It’s very bright and nice here.”

Reflecting on the delay, he said: “We built tunnels in the past to hide from our enemies, so building a tunnel for a train shouldn’t be so difficult.” “Finally, we made it!”