News #192: The metro line that HCMC should be building next

Xi Jinping visits Vietnam to talk (among other things) trains, Cambodia coastal development, installation of first ECRL track near Kuantan, ADB pledges $2.1B for Bataan-Cavite bridge, and more

Hello from Chiang Mai. This week I was set to publish an article about Chiang Mai, but once I started writing the article, it became a different article that needed more research. I’m also working on a transit map that is taking more time than I thought.

With two articles in draft, I published a short fact sheet about Line 4 of the HCMC Metro. This will be the main North-South line of the future metro, and it will interchange at Ben Thanh, which is a station with a 3-line interchange. This should be a priority line, and it was looking promising in 2015 (as was the HCMC metro in general).

News about the line went silent after that, and then this month a company from Turkey announced that it was interested in investing in the line.

Having a 3-line interchange is an unusual situation for new metros. It would effectively be 6 lines in all directions converging in the middle of the city. Hopefully there will be more updates to come.

Latest posts at Future Southeast Asia

Line 4 of the Ho Chi Minh City Metro (HCMC Metro) is a proposed North-South line of the Ho Chi Minh City transit system.

News

🇰🇭 Cambodia

🇮🇩 Indonesia

🇱🇦 Laos

🇲🇾 Malaysia

"The RM50 billion mega project, inaugurated on Aug 9, 2017, is scheduled to start operating in January 2027."

🇵🇭 Philippines

🇸🇬 Singapore

🇹🇭 Thailand

🇻🇳 Vietnam

• Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Vietnam for the first time since 2017. There were expectations of talks about rail projects, in particular the Lao Cai-Hanoi-Haiphong line.

36 cooperation documents were signed between the two countries, with points 19 and 20 related to rail:

19. MoU between the Ministry of Transport of Vietnam and the National Development and Reform Commission of China on strengthening Vietnam-China railway cooperation.

20. MoU between the Ministry of Transport of Vietnam and the International Development Cooperation Agency of China on strengthening aid cooperation for railway development across the Vietnam – China border.

For a detailed wrap-up of the visit, Mike atwill have a summary this week.

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