At a recent meeting to appraise the plan to construct a pedestrian bridge over the Han River, many of Da Nang’s experts, scientists and architects showed strong support for a delay in the implementation of the project.

They agreed that there appears to be no urgency for such a construction in the current context of financial difficulties and given the city’s limited budget.  Meanwhile, there are many local large-scale and urgent projects which are more in need of capital.  As a result, the city’s authorities will find it very hard to justify spending 30 million USD from the city’s budget to construct the pedestrian bridge. 

An architect’s model of the new pedestrian bridge

Da Nang now boasts many bridges spanning the Han River, and their unique and charming beauty has drawn a great deal of attention from both domestic and foreign visitors over recent years.  Moreover, according to the city’s urban master plan, the Nguyen Van Troi Bridge will be converted into a pedestrian-only bridge in the near future.  As a result, it was thought that the construction of the new shell-shaped pedestrian bridge over the river will not create any breakthroughs in the city’s tourism sector.

A local cultural researcher, Nguyen Dinh An, said that effective publicity of the bridge and its unique characteristics, along with the high quality of the local tourism services, is likely to help the city attract more visitors.

Cultural researcher An addressing the event

The Chairman of the city’s Historical Science Association, Mr Bui Van Tieng, stressed the need to take issues relating to safety into account in case of unexpected human stampedes on a crowded bridge, which could cause heavy casualties.  Such incidents have occurred in other countries around the world.  The bridge must also be able to withstand strong winds at above level 13.

Once built, the bridge will connect the roundabout at Dong Da Street in Hai Chau District with Son Tra District’s Tran Hung Dao Street.  Developed by the Sun Group, the project will be implemented under the built-transfer format.  As for the project’s architectural design, the city authorities received a total of 16 submissions from the world’s leading consultancy companies.  In the end, an outstanding design by Hyder Consulting, a multi-national design and engineering consultancy, was selected for the project.  According to this design, the 10.5m-wide bridge will feature the shapes of shells.  There will be 12m between the bridge deck surface and the level of the banks of the river.