'Finally, we made it!': Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro
'Finally, we made it!': Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro
The US$1.7 billion line runs almost 20km from the city centre.
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Cool! It's a life-changing thing to start getting good public transit in a city!
When Wuhan got its first metro (line 2: line 1 is a then-useless elevated light rail) it was actually possible to cross the Yangtze river in reasonable amounts of time, meaning that the two major halves of the city could finally interact properly without hours-long (note the plural) traffic jams.
Now with twelve lines built:
And with a bunch of extensions and new lines in the works, I haven't had to use a private vehicle in ages to go almost anywhere in the city with only a short bus ride and/or short walk on each end.
Ho Chi Minh City: congratulations and enjoy your new life as it unfolds before you.
Side note:
With lessons learnt, "the construction of future lines will be increasingly easier, faster, and more cost-efficient", Hoang told AFP.
Hell, yes! Line 2 took ages and was embarrassingly late. (Slated for 2010 opening, it finally limped across the finish line in late 2012, IIRC, and had major teething problems, including one train catching fire, thankfully at a terminal station with almost nobody on it. The next five lines were up in a couple of years, and the remaining half dozen seemed to spring up out of nowhere, not to mention the constant extensions of existing lines. Twelve years, eleven new lines, plus countless extensions. It unfurls like magic once you have the techniques and challenges down.