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HCMC’s public transportation campaign faces major hurdles
Reckless drivers and inadequate routes are two problems undercutting a mass drive to promote bus service for local commuters, city officials warned.
The Ho Chi Minh City government will throw the book at careless drivers of public buses and increase serviced routes to support a mass campaign to use public transportation, the municipal mayor said Tuesday.
At a meeting on Monday, the city administration said it would launch a traffic safety month in September and ask public officers and civil servants to use public transport or personal vehicles that do not require petrol to save money and curb pollution.
Starting next month, around 100,000 city officers would be asked to use buses or non-engine vehicles to go to work at least once a week.
The campaign is set to be applied to all residents in early 2009, the city said.
In initiating the project, the city aims to save around VND4.6 trillion (US$278 million) per year and reduce environmental pollution, Duong Hong Thanh, deputy director of HCMC’s Department of Transport, said at a meeting Tuesday.
The meeting brought together officials from the municipal administration and the Fatherland Front to discuss ways to carry out the mass campaign.
But at the meeting, the campaign’s feasibility was questioned by delegates who emphasized bus service has left much to be desired.
Nguyen Dinh Sang, from the city’s Fatherland Front Committee, said an overwhelming majority of polled citizens aired grievances against rude treatment by bus staffs and rampant pick-pocketing on board.
Such persistent woes have scared away potential commuters from using bus services, Sang said.
Nguyen Nguyet Hue, deputy director of the Department of Justice, concurred with Sang, saying she had fallen prey several times to mad rushes for the exits and rudeness from bus staff while onboard.
These situations forced her to revert to using her motorbike, Hue said.
But delegates at the meeting centered their criticisms on the reckless driving habits of bus drivers which frequently caused major traffic accidents in the city.
Many readers have written to Thanh Nien to complain that public buses usually exceed speed limits or encroach into motorbike lanes with no regard for safety and in utter contempt of traffic laws.
Speaking at the meeting, HCMC’s mayor Le Hoang Quan lambasted the host of problems plaguing bus service and instructed the Department of Transport to suspend careless bus drivers.
Delegates also highlighted bus route shortages, fearing this issue would seriously hinder the campaign.
Vo Van Long, deputy director of the Department of Information and Communications, said bus routes have yet to be implemented in many areas in the city.
“My house is located in Ward 15 of District 8 but so far no bus route runs through the area. So how can I abide by the city’s directive to use the bus to go to work?” Long said.
Mayor Quan at the meeting asked agencies concerned to expand the bus network in 24 districts to ensure there would be direct routes from outlying districts to the city’s heart, or at least ensure residents would just need two transfers to get downtown.
“We must create conditions so it’s easy for every citizen to catch a bus,” Quan said.
He told relevant agencies to collaborate closely to ensure the campaign would go well, fingering the improvement of staffs’ attitudes and condition of buses as a leading priority.
Quan also enlisted the media to monitor bus service in the city and report to authorities to help inform timely changes.
Thanhnien
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