In order to expand Hanoi’s Ring Road 3, the city will axe about 1,000 trees before October, while another 300 will be relocated or pruned. Many of the trees are four or five decades old and more than a meter in diameter.
According to VnExpress, the road expansion project will stretch 5.5 kilometers, from the Mai Dich Flyover in Cau Giay District to the south end of Thanh Long Bridge in Bac Tu Liem District at a cost of VND3 trillion (US$136 million). At present, Pham Van Dong Street (a portion of the Ring Road 3 project) has three lanes in each direction, but this will be doubled to a total of twelve lanes.
At the groundbreaking ceremony on October 5, 2016, Nguyen Duc Chung, chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee, said of the road, “This is an arterial road connecting traffic from the city center to Noi Bai International Airport and linking Hanoi’s major industrial zones.”
Though it appears the People’s Committee supports the project, the full details of the proposal have yet to be approved, so it will be a challenge to finish the upgrade before the September 30 deadline.
Trees, of course, are not the only things that will be uprooted. In addition, 796 homes and 55 office buildings will be removed at a cost of VND1.82 trillion (US$80 million) in compensation.
This incident, however, illustrates only one facet of the full picture. Two years ago, Hanoi removed 25% of its city’s trees as part of a “beautification project.” Another subsequent tree felling campaign was suspended due to public outcry.
Hanoi’s government previously committed to planting one million trees before 2020. By February of this year, Hanoi had already planted over 210,000 trees and hopes to surpass 430,000 by the end of 2017.
It is a difficult line to walk, or at least to drive, because it is estimated that by 2020, Hanoi will play host to over 1 million cars and 7 million motorbikes.
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