“Two roads diverged in a wood and I / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference”. So wrote American poet Robert Frost in 1920.

Would that such a road existed in Ho Chi Minh City in 2008.

Traveling by taxi at 4 p.m. from one side of District 1 on Cong Quynh Street to the other side on Mac Dinh Chi Street now takes a reliable 45 minutes.

All along major thorough-fares like Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, one sees an endless line of cars, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), buses, Multi-Person Vehicles (MPVs), and modified vehicles, yet weaving in between this monolithic queue (and often the only thing moving), are the bicycles, cyclos and motorbikes.

One wonders how such congestion appears to visiting dignitaries.

Of course, like Moses parting the Red Sea, the local traffic police stationed at every intersection between the airport and hotel ensure that these hallowed visitors never really feel the pinch of the current slow-down in inner-city navigation.

How soon, though, before the congestion starts to impact upon foreign investment and productivity? How long before the fragile infrastructure becomes terminally clogged?

Short cuts to circulation

Looking through the exhaust haze, what seems to be happening now is a near-constant rush hour.

A long line of cars extends from junction to junction in the left lane.

In their impatience, taxis dodge inside and take the space assigned to bicycles, motor-bikes and cyclos, then try to cut back in line further along, impeding two-wheeled traffic as they do.

And yet a few simple measures could make a world of difference to Saigon’s ever-expanding army of mechanized commuters.

Mass public transit systems are the obvious solution for Saigon’s traffic headaches, but these take considerable time and money to implement.

The much-touted subway is still years away from being finished.

Even when it is complete, one needs to consider how Vietnamese people, who have become used to the convenience of door-to-door travel on their motorbikes, will give that up to do something most Vietnamese people I know seem to avoid at all costs – that is, walking.

What about all those SUVs, MPVs, and four-seater sedans we see each day occupied by just one lone driver? One way around this inefficiency is simple – carpooling.

A carpool is a way to encourage people such as commuters to share car rides.

The idea is to better utilize each motor vehicle’s capacity to transport four or more people, in the hope of lessening the number of cars on the roads.

Box junctions prevent vehicles blocking the intersections at four-way crossroads.

This simple yellow criss-cross grid of painted diagonal lines across a junction is an excellent traffic control measure, reminding motorists not to block the intersection.

With the increased volume of traffic in HCMC, such blockages are happening all too often.

The result is that when the lights change to green, no one goes anywhere, frustration builds, and peals of car horns fill the air.

In countries such as the UK, those caught blocking the junction are often fined and have points added to their driver’s license.

The mind boggles at how few box junctions there are in this city.

Reordering the school run? Already HCMC’s People’s Committee is considering changing the times schools close and open, or staggering these to reduce traffic volumes at peak times

Widening roads to cope with the increases in volume would also help.

A good example of the efficacy of this is the Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street-Dien Bien Phu Street junction, which has become much more fluid thanks to the new extra lanes.

More buses, especially double-deckers, covering more extensive routes is another simple way to reduce volume.

Much further down the line is the possibility of congestion charges for cars and SUVs in the downtown area.

Singapore lead the way with this urban traffic control, requiring a fee to be paid before drivers could take their cars to certain areas of the city.

It requires a lot of modern technology to get it off the ground, with Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV) being used to read license plates and check for transgressors.

Not without its critics, the trend in modern megalopolises seems to be for just this kind of car counter-measure, with even New York considering such a charge.

I doubt that my personal approach of limiting the number of motorbikes per household would hold much sway now.

That horse bolted long ago, and with rising incomes and cheaper motorbikes, Vietnamese consumers are in no hurry to return to the quieter, slower, and cleaner mode of transport than once ruled the roads – the bicycle.

Ah, but can you imagine how joyful your commute would be if they did?

By Neil Fitzgerald