The southern province of Dong Nai has agreed to develop three bridges linking it with neighboring HCMC, which would ease a surging traffic volume plaguing the existing bridges in the area and promote local and regional socioeconomic growth.
One of the three bridges would connect HCMC’s Thu Duc City and Dong Nai Province’s Tam An Commune, Long Thanh District. One would link southern HCMC with Dong Nai’s Nhon Trach District. One would replace the existing Cat Lai ferry terminal.
Vehicles travel on the Long Thanh Bridge on the HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway, which links HCMC with neighboring Dong Nai Province (Photo: VNA)
Work on the six-lane Cat Lai bridge is scheduled to start before 2025. The other two bridges will be developed in the 2026-2030 period, according to a dispatch that the Dong Nai government sent to HCMC on March 8.
Dong Nai Province is located on the eastern side of HCMC. The two localities are geographically divided by the Dong Nai, Long Tau, Dong Tranh and Thi Vai rivers, but only two bridges were built to connect the province with the city. They are the Dong Nai Bridge on National Highway 1A and the Long Thanh Bridge on the HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway.
The Long Thanh and Dong Nai bridges are overwhelmed by a huge traffic load. The eight-lane Dong Nai bridge has a designed passenger car unit (PCU) of 96,000 per day, but it is currently handling 216,000 PCUs.
Similarly, the actual PCU recorded on the four-lane Long Thanh Bridge is 65,000, while its designed capacity is 48,000.
(The Saigon Times)
