Proposal for draft law not to stipulate that highways must have at least 4 lanes

This viewpoint was mentioned by Chairman of the National Assembly 's Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi when presenting a report on several major issues regarding the explanation, reception, and revision of the draft Road Law at the 31st session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the afternoon of March 15.

Regarding general regulations for highways (Article 47 of the draft law submitted by the Government ), Mr. Le Tan Toi said that there are opinions suggesting clearer regulations on highways because currently there are some highways with 2 lanes, no emergency lanes, only emergency stops.

Chairman of the National Assembly's Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi. (Photo: quochoi.vn)

The Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee stated that recently, there have been a number of serious traffic accidents on a number of highways, including highways with only 2 lanes (1 lane in each direction) and no hard divider, attracting public attention.

According to Mr. Le Tan Toi, in the recent period, due to limited resources, to meet immediate needs, some expressways were invested in 2-lane phases to ensure smooth connection, serve transportation needs, and develop the economy and society. However, through exploitation, the expressways invested in 2-lane phases when put into operation encountered certain difficulties and shortcomings.

Therefore, from 2023, the Prime Minister has directed not to invest in 2-lane expressways, but the implementation of this orientation is still very difficult due to the inability to balance enough capital for implementation. Therefore, the specific regulations on the number of lanes or specific technical requirements for expressways in the draft law need to be carefully considered.

" The Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee finds that the above opinion is correct. However, investment in the construction of expressways also depends on the ability to balance the budget and mobilize resources. On the other hand, this is an issue of technical standards and regulations, which will be studied and regulated in detail by the Ministry of Transport. Therefore, the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee proposes not to specify these contents in the draft law ," said Mr. Le Tan Toi.

Regarding highway usage fees (Article 54 of the draft law submitted by the Government), the Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee said that there were opinions suggesting assessing the necessity of regulating highway usage fees on highways invested in, owned, managed and operated by the State.

The Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee found that, in order to implement the National Assembly's policy in the resolutions approving investment in expressways, the Ministry of Transport has conducted research on toll collection plans on expressways invested by the State, and assessed the impact in the case of toll collection and non-toll collection on expressways invested by the State.

Mr. Le Tan Toi pointed out that the expressways invested by the State all have parallel national highways, allowing traffic participants to choose to use the expressway or national highway; traffic participants on expressways enjoy more benefits; the current form of road toll collection has not yet classified regular road users and expressway users.

" Therefore, the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee agrees with this content in the draft law submitted by the Government and proposes to amend and supplement the provisions of the Law on Fees and Charges ," said Mr. Le Tan Toi.

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