Building highways, limited resources so some places can only have 2 lanes

Participating in questioning Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang, delegate Nguyen Thanh Hai (Thua Thien - Hue delegation) said that currently, the Prime Minister's guiding viewpoint is to not encourage investment in expressways with 2 lanes, causing waste, ineffective exploitation, and time loss.

Currently, Thua Thien - Hue has 2 expressways: La Son - Tuy Loan and Cam Lo - La Son, which have promoted investment efficiency. However, due to small scale and low traffic volume and speed, National Highway 1A is still used. In fact, there have been many traffic accidents, so for small-scale projects, could the Minister please tell us if there is a plan to review and upgrade and expand?

Dialogue - Building highways, limited resources so some places can only have 2 lanes — Delegate Nguyen Thanh Hai (Photo: Quochoi.vn).

In response, Minister Nguyen Van Thang said that investing in complete 4-lane or 6-8-lane highways is a correct and necessary need. The Prime Minister always directs to try to invest in each route to complete that route.

However, in reality, many routes have limited resources so they only have enough budget to build 2 lanes, partly because initially, the traffic volume on these routes was not large.

Reiterating the Government and Prime Minister's directive on limiting the construction of two-lane highways, Mr. Thang said that through synthesis, there are currently five highways with two lanes, including two in Thua Thien - Hue.

"The Prime Minister has directed that in the coming time, budget resources should be prioritized to upgrade expressways from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. This is a very correct direction. The Ministry will seriously consider it and will continue to coordinate, advise and propose to have capital to complete all expressways from 2 lanes to 4 lanes," said the Minister.

Meanwhile, delegate Nguyen Van Manh (Vinh Phuc delegation) said that currently, some national highways do not meet travel needs, many roads are seriously degraded, affecting people's travel needs and socio-economic development.

Some provinces have proposed to the Ministry of Transport and the Government that there should be a mechanism allowing provinces to use local budgets to invest in expanding these routes, serving travel needs and socio-economic development, and then hand them over to local management. Delegates asked the Minister to share his views on this issue.

Dialogue - Building highways, limited resources so some places can only have 2 lanes (Figure 2). — Delegate Nguyen Van Manh (Photo: Quochoi.vn).

Responding, Minister Nguyen Van Thang said that currently, according to the provisions of the Budget Law and the Road Traffic Law, expressways on national highways are the investment responsibility of the Ministry of Transport. Provincial roads and below are the responsibility of localities.

"Recently, in the context of limited budget resources and many degraded roads, the central budget assigned to the Ministry of Transport in one year only met 66%. For example, this term, we need 446,000 billion VND to invest in building expressways and national highways, but the budget only allocated 366,000 billion VND, not enough to invest in all national highways," said Minister Nguyen Van Thang.

According to the Minister, in the context of limited central budget resources, if localities can arrange capital and work with the central government to implement national highways, it is very necessary and important.

Not only Vinh Phuc province but many localities have also recently proposed the same. The Ministry of Transport coordinated with ministries and branches to advise the Government and the Government leaders also met to submit to the National Assembly Standing Committee to implement the pilot mechanism while the Law has not been amended and the National Assembly issued a Resolution allowing localities to have capital to participate with the central government to implement the construction of national highways and expressways .

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