Hanoi - Ever since this once-impoverished communist
country's economy began taking off in the 1990s, the motorbike has
been an icon of wealth and modernization. To trade in your bicycle
for a motorbike was to show that you were making it, and by 2007,
over two-thirds of Vietnam's households owned one.
But since Vietnam's government abruptly raised gasoline prices 31
per cent on June 21, to 19,000 dong (1.10 dollars) per litre, the
symbolic status of the motorbike has taken a bit of a hit.
With inflation running at 27 per cent, and gas costs taking a big
bite out of the average Vietnamese wage, some have begun leaving
their Hondas at home, in favor of buses, electric scooters - and, yes
-bicycles.
'The number of people using buses and bicycles has increased
significantly since the gasoline price was raised,' said Than Van
Thanh, director of the Ministry of Transportation's Transit
Department.
Thanh said with the price hikes, a motorbike commuter might spend
nearly 20 dollars a month on fuel. 'Someone who earns 1.5 million
dong a month (about 100 dollars) cannot afford to travel by motorbike
anymore.'
The impact has shown up most clearly at shops selling electric
bicycles and scooters. Once mainly limited to the elderly, electric
bicycles have seen sales take off in the past month, and are selling
to a broader demographic.
'We're selling five or six units a day, compared with two a day
before the gasoline price was raised,' said Huynh Thi Nhung, a
salesperson at Robo Electric Bicycle Shop in Hanoi.
Nhung said she was selling many of the electric bikes to young
people and workers with low salaries. She estimated that the
electricity for a 90-kilometre trip on an electric bike would cost
about 0.3 dollars, while the same trip on a gasoline-powered
motorbike might cost 3.50 dollars.
The combination of high gasoline prices and inflation was also
leading to a slight rise in bicycle sales, Hanoi bike shop owner
Nguyen Trung Hiep said.
Hiep said families that might once have flaunted their wealth by
buying motorbikes for school-aged children were now economizing by
buying them new bicycles.
A shift away from motorbikes would be a healthy twist for Hanoi's
atmosphere. Over the past five years, it has become as polluted as
the air in more prosperous Asian cities like Bangkok, according to
pollution researcher Pham Duy Hien, who recently concluded a study of
Hanoi's air quality sponsored by the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation.
'There are very few motorbikes in developed countries,' said Hien.
It is not necessary to look to the West for countries without
gas-fueled motorbikes. The closest major Chinese city, Kunming,
allows only electric scooters, and boasts air quality far superior to
Hanoi's.
But Hien said any shift away from motorbikes in Vietnam was still
too small and too new to quantify. He called for a 'general movement
of the people' to turn from motorbikes to bicycles and buses.
There was a time when bicycles ruled the road in Vietnam. Images
from the 1960s and '70s feature young women in the flowing pantsuits,
called ao dai's, cycling along city streets. North Vietnamese wartime
propaganda movies show soldiers bicycling through mountainous jungle
on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, pedaling enormous loads of shells and
ammunition over bamboo and rope bridges.
As recently as the mid-1990s, Westerners who visited Hanoi were
struck by the quietness of the city, the sound of traffic limited to
the swish of bicycle wheels and the tingling of bells. One visitor at
the time estimated the ratio of bicycles to motorbikes at ten to one.
Today, Hanoi's traffic is a cacophonous riot. Poor peasants
bicycling in from the countryside with fruits or vegetables piled on
the backs of their bikes must dodge and weave between herds of
honking motorbikes.
The chaotic traffic is in itself a disincentive for bicyclists.
They may not be emitting any fumes themselves, but they must still
breathe everyone else's.
And for those prosperous Vietnamese who can afford gasoline, the
motorbike habit may prove a hard one to kick.
Pham Van Khai, 45, a customer at Nhung's Robo Electric Bicycle
Shop, said he didn't plan to switch to an electric motorbike himself.
He was looking for one for his granddaughter.
'It's a lot cheaper and safer for her to use an electric bike,'
Khai said. 'But I have to travel a lot, so I will stick to my
motorbike.'
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