Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee Hears Report on Transportation Development Planning Options

On the morning of December 5th, Mr. Tran Duy Dong – Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee (PPC), chaired a conference to hear the Department of Construction report on the Transportation Development Planning Options within the province. Also attending were Mr. Quach Tat Liem – Provincial Party Committee Member, Vice Chairman of the PPC, and leaders of relevant departments and sectors.

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Tran Duy Dong concludes and directs the conference.

According to the report from the Department of Construction: After the merger, Phu Tho province currently has over 30,721 km of roads, including 2 expressways, 16 national highways, 111 provincial roads, 6 CT.229 routes, and a system of urban, communal, and rural roads. Additionally, the province has over 678 km of inland waterways and 1 national railway line nearly 113 km long with 13 stations.

For road transportation, the province prioritizes focusing resources on investing in key traffic routes that facilitate inter-regional and inter-provincial connectivity, creating momentum for socio-economic development. Prominent projects include: The inter-regional traffic project connecting Viet Tri Ward with Hoa Binh Ward; the Hoa Binh – Moc Chau Expressway project; the Hoa Lac – Hoa Binh road and the renovation and upgrade of National Highway 6 section Xuan Mai – Hoa Binh; the Capital Ring Road 5 project (section from Vinh Thinh Bridge to IC5 interchange).

Upgrading and expanding important national highways to ensure technical standards and traffic capacity, including: National Highway 2, 6, 32, and Ho Chi Minh Road.

Regarding the railway sector: Proposing the renovation and upgrade of the Hanoi – Lao Cai route and adjusting/supplementing its function as an urban railway segment passing through the Vinh Phuc area to the former Phu Tho town.

Planning a new urban railway line from the Phu Tho station area (on the Lao Cai – Hanoi – Hai Phong railway line), running along the Ho Chi Minh Road to the Viet Tri – Hoa Binh Expressway and onward to the former Hoa Binh city.

Prioritizing the implementation of local responsibilities to accelerate the completion of the Lao Cai – Hanoi – Hai Phong railway project.

Regarding the waterway sector: Developing the inland waterway port system; constructing several important inland ports and landing stages, and building infrastructure to connect waterway traffic with road and rail traffic.

Researching dredging, clearing, and completing infrastructure and signals to bring waterways into technical grade, aiming to create new shipping routes on the Chay River, Bua River, Boi River, and the flooded routes of the Da River.

Concluding the conference, Chairman of the PPC Tran Duy Dong fundamentally agreed with and highly appreciated the efforts of the Department of Construction in researching, synthesizing, and developing the Transportation Development Planning Options for integration into the Provincial Master Plan, ensuring synchronization, uniformity, and alignment with the province’s socio-economic development orientation in the new phase. This will serve as the basis for investing in and developing a rational and unified transport network across the province, with appropriate scale for each locality and region, forming transport axes that connect economic development clusters and areas, facilitating the exploitation of existing potential and developing the capacity of the transportation sector.

The Chairman of the PPC emphasized the principle of prioritizing investment in expressways, and planning the connection of expressways with industrial parks, urban areas, and logistics centers. Along with road transport development planning as a breakthrough solution, given the new space after the three-province merger, the current population scale, and especially the proximity to Hanoi... the Department of Construction and related departments must pay special attention to researching planning and investment options for urban railway lines connecting Hanoi with the province’s urban areas and connecting the province’s urban areas with each other; supplementing the planning of underground infrastructure and underground traffic space associated with the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) model.

Concurrently with investing in waterway infrastructure development (in line with the Inland Waterway Infrastructure Master Plan for 2021–2030, approved by the Prime Minister), there is a need to review, research, supplement, upgrade, and develop the inland waterway port system to enhance capacity, share the transportation market, reduce the load on road transport, lower transportation costs, and thereby boost the province’s socio-economic development.

The Chairman of the PPC assigned the Department of Finance (the lead agency for establishing the Provincial Master Plan) to closely coordinate with the Department of Construction and related departments to review and synchronously integrate the content of the Transportation Infrastructure Development Plan into the Phu Tho Provincial Master Plan for the period 2021 – 2030, with a vision to 2050. They must research the inclusion and updating of transport development orientations after the merger of the three provinces (Phu Tho - Hoa Binh – Vinh Phuc), ensuring interconnectivity, inheritance, and non-overlapping between previous plans; and forming a synchronized and modern inter-regional – inter-provincial – intra-regional transport network.

The Chairman of the PPC also agreed to the policy of prioritizing the allocation of medium-term public investment capital for the 2026 – 2030 period for key transport projects that have a spillover effect, connect regions, and directly impact socio-economic development. He directed research into investment methods and planning to call for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to speed up implementation, quickly bringing projects into operation to promote socio-economic growth, especially for routes with direct revenue potential (expressways, urban bypasses, river bridges); and projects for operating auxiliary services (bus stations, rest stops, logistics, cargo ports...).

Dinh Vu