Hanoi has the "golden key" to develop urban railways

Key solution shorten project implementation time urban railway

At the 7th session, the National Assembly officially passed the Law on the Capital (amended), consisting of 7 chapters with 54 articles, clearly defining the position and role of the Capital as well as policies and responsibilities for building, developing, managing and protecting the Capital.

In particular, in this Law, the National Assembly creates many breakthrough policies to help Hanoi develop space as well as transport infrastructure.

Hà Nội có — Mr. Le Trung Hieu, Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment (DPI).

Specifically, the Law has allowed investment in urban railway development in Hanoi to prioritize the TOD model, ensuring modernity, synchronization, and sustainability.

In the TOD area, the city is allowed to collect and use 100% of the revenue from some items to reinvest in the construction of urban railways, public transport systems, and technical infrastructure connecting to the public passenger transport system.

Sharing about the Law on the Capital (amended), Mr. Le Trung Hieu, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment - a member of the Drafting Team of the Law on the Capital (amended) said that the passing of the Law on the Capital (amended) can be seen as the National Assembly and the Government giving Hanoi a "golden key".

"That 'golden key' will open the door to overcoming the difficulties and obstacles that have lasted for decades, hindering the development of transport infrastructure, especially urban railways," Mr. Hieu acknowledged.

Mr. Hieu said that the Capital Law (amended) is one of the pivotal policy frameworks with special significance in promoting the development of urban railways and TOD.

The actual shortcomings and inadequacies have been pointed out by experts such as: Lack of regulations on land value recovery during urban railway construction; lack of common technical standards and regulations; being bound by too many administrative procedures causing difficulties for urban railway projects.

All of these issues will be fundamentally resolved based on the provisions of the new Capital Law, when Hanoi is given autonomy in investing and constructing urban railway projects.

Urban development according to public transport orientation (TOD model) is a solution for planning, renovating, embellishing and developing urban areas, taking urban railway traffic connection points or traffic connection points using other mass public passenger transport modes as residential, commercial service and office concentration points within walking distance to public transport to improve the efficiency of land use, public works, public health, reduce personal motor vehicles, reduce emissions causing environmental pollution, combined with preserving and promoting cultural values.

According to Mr. Hieu, in Clause 1, Article 37, the authority on investment in the Law on the Capital (amended) introduces the concept: "A key project of the Capital is a large-scale project, playing a role in creating momentum, spreading power, and connecting to implement the goals, tasks, and solutions for socio-economic development of the Capital, which is of great significance to the socio-economic development of the Capital, the Capital Region, and the whole country. The Hanoi People's Council regulates the List of key projects of the Capital".

Thus, the Law on the Capital (amended) has become a solid legal basis allowing the Hanoi People's Council to decide on investment policies for key projects of urgent significance to the capital. This will be a key solution to shorten the implementation time for key projects, especially urban railways.

Hanoi is completely proactive in site clearance.

In addition, the Law on the Capital allows the Hanoi People's Council to prescribe the procedures for deciding on investment policies for projects under its authority according to the provisions of the law on public investment and deciding on investment policies for the following projects: Urban railways; projects using public investment capital of up to VND 20,000 billion.

Projects using the central budget, ODA capital, and foreign preferential loans with Hanoi as the investor; projects using state budget capital combined with non-budgetary capital; inter-provincial public investment projects located in the capital region.

Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment Le Trung Hieu also said that Clause 1, Article 38 of the Capital Law (amended) is considered a very strong stimulant with the content: "Separate compensation, support, and resettlement into independent projects".

At the same time, Clause 2, Article 38 also clearly states that, based on the overall project investment policy, the competent state agency of the city decides to invest in compensation, support and resettlement projects.

The investment decision is the basis for allocating capital for the annual public investment plan, and is also the basis for the competent state agency of the City to issue land recovery notices and land recovery decisions.

"Thus, the bottleneck of site clearance that has delayed the progress of many key transport projects in Hanoi has been resolved. Hanoi can be completely proactive in site clearance as well as project implementation timing," said Mr. Hieu.

Support needed to complete urban railway system in the capital

National Assembly Delegate Tran Hoang Ngan, member of the National Assembly's Economic Committee, expressed his absolute support for the contents of the revised Law on the Capital this time.

He said that most countries have laws specifically for the capital, because this is the heart of the country, so very special mechanisms are needed.

More importantly, the Capital is the administrative and political center, the face of the nation, so mechanisms and policies must be strongly decentralized to the Capital's leaders to make early decisions and immediately adjust any unreasonable issues without having to wait for procedures to ask for the Government's opinion.

The Law on the Capital (amended) stipulates that investment in urban railway development in the City is given priority to apply the TOD model, ensuring modernity, synchronization, sustainability and implementing the following regulations:

The Hanoi People's Council decided on the investment policy for the urban railway project following the TOD model according to investment phases in each stage; decided to separate the compensation, support and resettlement contents into independent projects;

Hanoi People's Committee decides to invest in urban railway projects according to the TOD model, decides to invest or approves investment policies for component projects, decides to invest in land acquisition, compensation, support, and resettlement projects;

The content, order, procedures and authority to appraise the projects specified in Point a and Point b of this Clause shall be implemented similarly to Group A projects under the authority of the Provincial People's Council according to the provisions of the law on public investment;

The Hanoi People's Committee has decided to choose to apply standards and regulations for the city's urban railway lines.

Mr. Ngan acknowledged that the contents of the Capital Law were passed very comprehensively and expressed his interest in decentralization and delegation of power in the organization of the apparatus, urban management and expansion of the development space of the Capital.

According to Mr. Ngan, these decentralizations will help Hanoi reduce traffic congestion, infrastructure, hospitals, schools, etc., help expand development space, and reduce population density in the central area.

"Support is needed to complete the urban railway system in the capital, expand the space to the south and north of the Red River, and use the Red River as the central axis," said Mr. Ngan.

According to Mr. Tran Hoang Ngan, Hanoi City has a plan to expand five urban development spaces, in addition to the central urban area, there are also four satellite cities, so infrastructure connections are needed.

"To connect infrastructure, we need resources and decentralization to do it quickly. The revised Capital Law has promoted decentralization to solve the city's current problems," Mr. Ngan emphasized.

Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/ha-noi-co-chia-khoa-vang-phat-trien-duong-sat-do-thi-192240630174135979.htm