(Bloomberg) -- After years of funding shortages, ballooning costs and bureaucratic foot-dragging, Ho Chi Minh City is opening the first metro line to serve its 10 million residents.
Years of start-and-stop construction means the seemingly new ticket vending machines are partly obsolete: they accept coins that are no longer in circulation. Fortunately, passengers can also pay with paper money and credit cards.
The 19.7 kilometer (12.2 miles) metro line was green-lighted in 2007 with an initial cost estimate of about 17.4 trillion dong ($683.4 million) — which eventually swelled to 43.7 trillion dong — and a planned 2018 opening.
The project, whose construction began in 2012, received substantial financing aid from the Japanese government, according to the city’s transport department. Obstacles included a funding shortage from the Vietnam government that caused Japanese contractors to complain through the Japanese embassy in Vietnam, according to local media and government reports.
The soaring costs needed to be continually re-approved by Vietnam’s parliament, a painfully slow process.
The metro line runs from the historic Ben Thanh Market in the city’s District 1 center to the suburban Thu Duc City and Suoi Tien Amusement Park in District 9. Individual trip fares range from 6,000 dong to 20,000 dong. Rides are free for the first 30 days of official operation that began Sunday. The line will operate 200 trips a day.
Anticipation for its opening stirred excitement among traffic-weary residents in the nation’s financial hub. Hundreds lined up in front of the Ben Thanh underground station on Thursday to wait for a free test ride.
“I’m so happy and proud that the city now has a metro line and becomes more modern and convenient,” said Nguyen Thu Trang, who was among hundreds of students enlisted to help people navigate the new metro stations on Sunday. “Some of my friends came early this morning and were waiting in line for almost two hours but they didn’t leave until they could get on board. I myself also tried a short ride and I must say it’s amazing,” Trang added.
Road Mayhem
In a city with 8.4 million motorbikes clogging narrow streets — and a growing number of automobiles and trucks hauling cargo containers adding to the road mayhem — a mass rapid transit line is desperately needed.
“It’s so beautiful,” wrote one reader of an article about the metro on VnExpress news website in the comments section. “I can’t wait to try it.”
The sound of swishing metro cars also triggered snarky remarks on social media. “The world has gone to the moon, but in Vietnam we now just have MRT to travel on,” one Facebook user quipped.
Vietnam’s commercial hub also needs to cater for an increasing number of international guests. Foreign visitors rose 13% to about 4.7 million in the first 10 months this year, according to the city government.
Ho Chi Minh City — optimistically — plans six more metro lines, according to the city’s government. Planning and Investment Minister Nguyen Chi Dung, at a conference last year, urged the central government to find a solution to the city’s financing needs for more lines.
--With assistance from Linh Vu Nguyen.
(Updates with student quote in eighth paragraph)
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