Ground transport hub slated for capital

Photo by: Will Baxter
An artist’s rendition on phnompenh.gov.kh shows plans for a new international bus terminal to be built by LYP Group.

via CAAI

Monday, 13 December 2010 19:32 Tep Nimol

Local tycoon and CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat has announced plans to build a new bus terminal on the outskirts of Phnom Penh intended to serve as the capital’s ground transport hub.

Ly Yong Phat said yesterday that his LYP Group had invested about US$10 million in the project, planned to be opened in January or February of 2011.

“I will build the bus station, and if bus companies and other passenger service providers park at my station, they have to pay us a set fee,” Ly Yong Phat said.

The terminal will have a capacity of 264 buses, 540 cars, 342 vans and 300 minibuses, Ly Yong Phat said, and will be constructed on 27 hectares of land in Russey Keo district’s Bak Kheng commune, which was formerly part of Kandal province’s Muk Kampoul district before being re-zoned earlier this year.

Ly Yong Phat has been involved in contentious land disputes in Oddar Meanchey and Kampong Speu provinces with villagers who claim to have been displaced by his development projects.

Muk Kampoul district deputy police chief Koang Siphal said, however, that the land in Bak Kheng commune was uninhabited forest purchased by Ly Yong Phat several years ago.

In a meeting last week on the project, Phnom Penh deputy governor Nuon Sameth said the new terminal would “facilitate the flow of traffic in Phnom Penh and in the surrounding area in line with the strategic expansion policy of the capital”.

Ly Yong Phat said his firm would also construct condominiums and hotels near the bus terminal, located about 20 kilometres from central Phnom Penh, to provide temporary accommodation for travellers.

Sok Chan Mony, general manager of the Rith Mony bus company, said the terminal would ease congestion in the city, though he also said that both passengers and transporters would see rising costs if all companies are forced to relocate.