For almost a year, Vietnam’s city-dwellers have been embroiled in a heated debate about the future of their streets. “We should ban motorbikes,” one side says. The other side, however, has formulated an unbeatable argument: “Look what happened to Yangon.”
In June 2016, city officials in Hanoi discussed a proposal to ban two-wheel vehicles by 2025, even while the city registers tens of thousands of motorbikes each month. The near-impossible proposal was met with opposition and incredulity. Critics argued that a motorbike ban would leave low-income residents without affordable, efficient means of transportation.
Last month, debate also erupted in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) when an urban traffic expert publicly proposed that the city ban motorbikes.
“It’s high time Saigon removed motorbikes from its traffic circulation,” said University of Technology professor Pham Xuan Mai at a conference on regulating personal vehicles in the city.
The professor noted that the city is home to the highest concentration of motorbikes in the world, with 910 bikes per 1,000 people and 7.5 million in total. This high concentration, he said, results in congestion, accidents, and a $6 billion-loss to the economy every year.
“That the municipal government continued to tolerate motorbikes zipping through the streets is partly why living standards in Saigon remain stagnant,” he said.
He called for measures to curb the flow of motorbikes into Saigon’s city center, including fees and limited parking options.
And Saigon authorities are actually considering such a policy. The city’s Department of Transport said last year it is devising a policy to limit personal vehicles – most of which are motorbikes – in central areas as a solution to the congestion problem.
Luckily, though, some people are aware of what happened not too far away, in Yangon.
In an effort to rouse supporters of a Saigon motorbike ban from their madness, the news site Saigoneer today cautioned Vietnamese authorities not to fall into the same trap as Myanmar’s leaders did 14 years ago.
“As Saigon is mulling a complete ban on motorbikes – first, in the city’s downtown area and then, city-wide, perhaps – it’s high time to look at the situation in Yangon, where a similar ban was implemented more than ten years ago,” the author argues.
That’s right. In 2003, Myanmar’s leaders mysteriously banned motorbikes in the Yangon municipal area and even banned bicycles in the six downtown townships.
Traffic police say road safety was the main reason for the ban, even as motorbikes are legal everywhere else in the country. They have also acknowledged that the ban was related to an incident in which two teenagers pulled up alongside the car of a military general and made gestures resembling the firing of a gun, as depicted in the graphic novel Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle.
Regardless of the motivation, many Yangon residents believe the motorbike ban intermingled with other policies in a way that has made life in the city more difficult.
According to Saigoneer: “The ban has undoubtedly led to a boost in car ownership. A gradual decrease in the price of imported cars in recent years hasn’t helped either, as the city’s streets are clogged with personal vehicles. The local government tried to impose additional taxes and import restrictions not long ago, but the return of bikes seems unlikely.”
Saigon peeps, is that really what you want?
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