Sections of Sai Gon Bridge, one of the five bridges of metro route No.1 Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), were joined on September 30.

The bridge, built from December 2013, is 267.5 meter long and 11.1 meter wide.

Four other bridges (Van Thanh, Dien Bien Phu, Rach Chiec and the flyover on Ha Noi Expressway) are under construction, said Le Nguyen Minh Quang, head of HCMC’s Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR).

Sai Gon Bridge (L) of metro route No.1 runs parallel to another bridge with the same name

They are part of package No.2 of the metro route project. This package constructs 17.1km of overhead facilities, 11 stations and the depot area of Long Binh. About 60 percent of its work amount has been carried out.

Meanwhile, 36 percent of package No.1b, which is building two underground stations, and 11 percent of the work load in package No.3, which includes technical design and mechanical and electrical equipment procurement, has been done, according to Hoang Nhu Cuong, deputy head of the MAUR.

Metro route No.1 is 19.7km long and has a total investment of USD 2.49 billion funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Its construction started in August 2012 and packages have been implemented with good quality, said Chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong.

Quang pledged that more efforts will be made to complete overhead construction in 2019 and put the whole route into operation in 2020.

Source: VNA