Phap Van - Cau Gie Expressway will increase to 12 lanes, build overpass

Reasons to upgrade to the highway

Speaking with Tien Phong reporter on March 27, Mr. Vu Duc Nhan - Deputy Director of BOT Phap Van - Cau Gie Joint Stock Company - said that there are 3 reasons for the unit to propose upgrading and expanding the Phap Van - Cau Gie expressway from 6 to 12 lanes.

The first reason is that the traffic volume on the route is nearly double the design. According to statistics, the average traffic volume through the toll station each day is more than 85,000 standard vehicles, while the designed traffic volume the route can handle each day is 55,000 vehicles.

Phap Van - Cau Gie Expressway currently has more than 85,000 vehicles/day - double the designed capacity of the route. Photo: Trong Dang.

Second, on weekends or holidays, the route is often congested with traffic, especially at the Phap Van gateway, leading to prolonged congestion on the route.

Third, in addition to the 4 existing intersections, the route will soon have 3 more intersections from other traffic projects connecting to it, including: Ring Road 4, Ring Road 3.5, and the road connecting Phap Van - Cau Gie Expressway with Ring Road 3.

“From these facts, if the route is not expanded in time, traffic congestion will become more serious. In addition, when the three new intersections are connected, traffic volume will increase even more than at present, causing overload and not being able to effectively utilize the invested traffic infrastructure,” said Mr. Nhan.

According to the Deputy Director of BOT Phap Van - Cau Gie Joint Stock Company, the unit has just submitted a preliminary proposal report to the Ministry of Construction and related units on the need to invest in expanding the expressway to 12 lanes. Along with that, the investor also proposed three options for the authorities to study and choose.

Option 1: Expand both sides of the highway according to the plan until 2030, with a vision to 2045, in which the first section from Phap Van to Ring Road 4 has a scale of 12 lanes, the section from Ring Road 4 - Phu Thu (Ha Nam) has 10 lanes, the total route length is about 40 km.

Option 2: Build a 6-lane overpass from Phap Van to Dai Xuyen, 29 km long, keeping the current 6 lanes underneath. The section from Dai Xuyen to Phu Thu is expanded to 10 lanes on both sides according to the plan.

Option 3: Build a 6-lane elevated road from Phap Van to Khe Hoi overpass (Thuong Tin, Hanoi) about 10 km long, keeping the 6 lanes underneath. The remaining section from Khe Hoi overpass to Phu Thu will expand the road underneath according to the plan to 10-12 lanes.

Build an overpass, increase to 12 lanes

After receiving the investor's proposal, the Minister of Construction has assigned the Vietnam Road Administration to coordinate with the investor and relevant agencies to implement the next steps to ensure compliance with regulations and promptly report a specific plan to the Ministry's leaders.

Graphic of two viaduct branches, each branch has 3 car lanes built by the investor, in the middle is the existing 6-lane highway.

Responding to Tien Phong reporter about the recent project of upgrading and expanding the road and exploiting and using up all the land in the median strip, if now building an overpass, what will be the implementation plan? Mr. Nhan said that currently the land in the median strip of the expressway is no longer available, but the land strip between the slope and the road on both sides of the road is still available, so the investor has proposed a plan to build two overpass branches on both sides (on the slope side), each overpass branch will be 3 lanes wide and run parallel to both sides of the expressway lane.

Currently, the investor has conducted a field survey and developed a graphic plan for two overpass lanes to expand the route. This implementation plan is relatively suitable for the existing site, ensuring aesthetics and safe operation.

Regarding the timeframe for project implementation and completion, Mr. Nhan said that if the proposal is approved by the Ministry of Construction and relevant units soon, the project enterprise will complete the technical documents and investment preparation steps this year, then coordinate with relevant units to complete the site clearance. When the site is available, the investor will carry out the construction and expansion project of Phap Van - Cau Gie expressway to 12 lanes within 2 years.

Party-oriented

Source: https://tienphong.vn/cao-toc-phap-van-cau-gie-se-tang-len-12-lan-xe-xay-cau-can-post1728757.tpo