Hanoi to shed its motorbikes

Officials in Vietnam’s trafficchoked capital, Hanoi, this week vowed to banish motorbikes by 2030 to ease environment and congestion woes, a decision that swiftly divided a city where two-wheelers are the main means of transportation.

Hanoi is famed for legions of motorbikes – sometimes stacked with entire families or overloaded with deliveries – that clog roads.

There are five million motorbikes among a population of about seven million, compared to half a million cars on the road.

In a country where the average annual wage is still about R30 000, the affordability of motorbikes makes them ubiquitous.

Yet critics have blamed the emissions-heavy motorbikes for Hanoi’s deteriorating air quality and worsening traffic congestion.

The decision to ban them by 2030 was approved by 95 out of 96 city councillors on Tuesday.

Officials said the number of vehicles was growing at an “alarming” rate, according to a report on the city government’s website. “Traffic jams and air pollution will become serious if no immediate management measures are in place,” the report said.

The ban will be implemented in metropolitan districts and public transport options would be increased to wean people off their scooters, the report added.

Officials in Hanoi have long mulled over banning the bikes in an effort to modernise the city like Seoul or Tokyo.

Some welcomed the move, saying the ban is crucial to cleaning up Hanoi’s air, which is notoriously smoggy in the winter months.

“Too many private cars, too many motorbikes ... the quality of air is really bad and the decision made today will improve that,” said economist and transport expert Luong Hoai Nam.

The city clocked 282 days of “excessive” levels of PM2.5, a fine particulate matter harmful to human health, said the nongovernmental group GreenID, citing World Health Organisation guidelines.

The Hanoi government is rolling out an air monitoring system in an effort to make Hanoi “green and clean and civilised, so that people living and working here have a high quality of life”, Nguyen Trong Dong, the head of the city’s environment department told

last month. On social media, some people decried the motorbike ban announcement, questioning whether the government would really offer viable public transport alternatives as promised. –