The inauguration of Ho Chi Minh City’s new Mien Dong (Eastern) Bus Station will be delayed until at least the end of this year, moving the opening day more than ten months behind schedule due to sluggish construction progress.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Mien Dong Bus Station was held in April 2017 for what was expected to be an approximately eight month project.

Site clearance delays pushed the planned completion back to Vietnam’s Lunar New Year, held in mid-February of this year.

Now, nearly four months after the second deadline, the project’s completion still seems far from sight.

The new facility is aimed at eradicating regular congestion at the current bus station in Binh Thanh District as well as providing better services for residents who wish to travel to provinces east of Ho Chi Minh City and localities in the central and northern regions of Vietnam.

A model of the new Mien Dong Bus Station

With a total capital of VND4 trillion (US$176.4 million), the completed station will cover an area of 16 hectares, of which 12.3 hectares will be in outlying District 9, Ho Chi Minh City and the rest in neighboring Binh Duong Province.

From just outside the building site, it seems workers are busy constructing concrete pillars at the main hall of the station while the rest of site seems basically empty.

Several houses that were meant to be demolished to make way for the new bus station have yet to be taken down.

Streets surrounding the construction site are filled with dust, polluting the air in the neighborhood and creating a serious risk of traffic accidents when trucks pass by.

According to leaders of the Saigon Transportation Mechanical Corporation (SAMCO), the project’s developers, the site clearance process is still unfinished as there is one household who has refused to move.

A map detailing the location of the new Mien Dong Bus Station

SAMCO is seeking approval from competent authorities to let the family buy a 140 square meter piece of land as compensation for their relocation.

The firm also attributed the slow construction to difficulties in transferring land plots needed for the construction site.

In addition, the E3 and D11 roads included in the project overlap with an existing street, causing further challenges as the developer must ensure that citizens are still able to use the routes during the ongoing construction.

Given the current pace, SAMCO expects that the new bus station will be put into operation on December 31.

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