Thousands of selfie-taking residents of Ho Chi Minh City crowded into train carriages on Sunday as the pedestrianized commercial hub celebrated the opening of its first subway line after years of delays.
Huge queues formed at every station along the $1.7 billion line, which runs nearly 20 km (12 miles) from the city center – with women in traditional “ao dai” clothing, soldiers in uniform and couples with little ones Children excitedly waiting to get in.
“I know it (the project) is late, but I still feel very honored and proud to be among the first in this subway,” said office worker Nguyen Nhu Huyen after taking a selfie in her crowded train carriage had made.
“Our city is now on a par with other major cities in the world,” she added.
It took 17 years for Vietnam’s commercial capital to reach this point. The project, financed largely by Japanese government loans, was first approved in 2007 and is expected to cost just $668 million.
When construction began in 2012, authorities promised the line would be operational in five years.
But as delays mounted, cars and motorcycles proliferated in the city of nine million, making the metropolis hugely congested, increasingly polluted and more time-consuming to navigate.
The subway “meets residents’ growing travel needs and helps reduce traffic congestion and pollution,” said the city’s deputy mayor Bui Xuan Cuong.
Cuong admitted authorities had to overcome “countless hurdles” to get the project over the finish line.
Back on the train, 84-year-old war veteran Vu Thanh told AFP news agency he was happy to experience the underground in a more positive way after spending three years fighting in the city’s famous Cu Chi Tunnels, a vast underground space American troops have fought network.
“It feels so different from the underground experience I had years ago during the war. “It’s so bright and beautiful here,” he said.
Professor Vu Minh Hoang of Fulbright University Vietnam warned that with only 14 stops, the line’s “impact on traffic relief will be limited in the short term.”
Nevertheless, it is a “historic achievement for the city’s urban development,” he told AFP.
