A flyover bridge over the Cat Lai T-junction has significantly eased traffic congestion on the Hanoi Highway, Ho Chi Minh City officials have said.

Traffic congestion at the Cat Lai T-junction and the Hanoi Highway has been eased due to the newly opened Cat Lai flyover.

The highway, which links Ho Chi Minh City with Dong Nai Province\'s Bien Hoa City, was built in 1961 and is 31km in length and 21m in width.

Luong Cong Thanh, director of the Cong Thanh Transport Enterprise, said in the past the highway often faced heavy traffic jams at the section from the Sai Gon River Bridge to the Tan Van intersection.

The area\'s traffic jams were caused by congestion at the Cat Lai T-junction, Thanh said.

The new fly-over bridge is 300m in length, linking the Rach Chiec Sports Complex with the Cat Lai T-Junction in District 2.

It comprises approach roads totalling 200m and has a main span of 100m.

Now that the bridge is open, traffic congestion at the Cat Lai T-junction and the Ha Noi Highway has nearly ceased, according to Nguyen Van Quang, driver for the Dang Tien Transport Company.

Before the bridge was built, drivers of container trucks faced a dangerous bend in the road at the section linking the Cat Lai T-junction and the Hanoi Highway and had to wait a long time at traffic lights.

But now all of these problems have ended.

Duong Quang Chau, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Infrastructure Investment Joint-stock Company (CII), said the construction of the Cat Lai flyover was one of several projects that the Ho Chi Minh City government developed over the last few years to reduce traffic on the Hanoi Highway.

One of the major projects is to widen the Hanoi Highway from the current six to eight lanes at an 8.5-km section from the Sai Gon Bridge to the Thu Duc crossroads, Chau said.

The project will be implemented in three phases on three sections of the road: from the Sai Gon River Bridge to the Rach Chiec River; from the Rach Chiec Bridge to the Thu Duc Crossroads; and from the Thu Duc Crossroads to the Tan Van traffic intersection.

Although the plan was developed in April this year, a majority of the construction work of the section from the Rach Chiec Bridge to the Thu Duc Crossroads has been completed, he said.

All work needed to enlarge the Hanoi Highway would be finished at the end of the next year.

Together with some other projects, the projects to widen the Hanoi Highway and build the Cat Lai flyover would help ease the traffic congestion on the highway, Chau said.