Gulf News reports:
Trams to offer alternative transport
By Ashfaq Ahmed, Staff Reporter
Dubai: Trams will be run on Jumeirah Road to provide an alternate mode of public transport, said a senior official.
"We are planning to run trams on Jumeirah Road. It will be an extension of the tram system to be constructed on Al Sufouh Road," said Abdul Redha, Director of Planning and Design Department of the Dubai Metro at the Roads and Transport Authority.
Read it again. "Trams will run on Jumeirah Road".
That's the one we all know as Beach Road. The one that's been opened only a few weeks after the never-ending widening/beautification construction chaos.
Do they really mean "trams"?
Trams run on tracks...which are set into the road. So that must mean they're going to dig the road up again!
And we'll lose the new third lanes that were put in to cope with the increasing volume of traffic, because they'll take the trams.
The same will happen to the brand new Al Sufouh Road, which has been open only two or three months. Dig it up, lose a lane in either direction.
Hypothetical question to the authorities. Why didn't you finalise the plan a little earlier so that the tram lines could have been put in as part of the construction of the roads?
Read the full report in Gulf News
Now think about another aspect of this. Trams are on tracks and can only move in a straight line. We'll have them on the same road as Dubai's drivers. Not an ideal combination I'd have thought.
08 October, 2006
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7 comments:
Given how many tram vs car accidents there are in Melbourne (Australia), I shudder to think how the Good Drivers of Dubai will cope with trams on the road...
Yet another brilliant idea from the traffic engineers/town planners, who should all be consigned to purgatory.
Balushi, it wasn't me! Call the police to find the culprit.
Well, you dont really need to dig into the road. Modern track-laying techniques could have you finished with 1 km a day of road. Track laying for trams is really restricted to digging through about one foot, and laying a steel structure under that. Making sure that the tram can only be entered from the right will help lessen deaths, reinforcing the left front and back with a steel structure will also help it to at least ensure the only deaths are the stupid drivers.
there is also a "wet line" that will take passengers from airport and city centre straight into wild wadi!
The 'Good Drivers of Dubai' should be easily able to cope. They're both highly skilled and very experienced.
;-)
I swear the road planners must be stoners. They come up with ideas the same way.
Trams aren't something you cut and paste onto the existing roads - you need to erect the towers that supply them with juice, as well as depots for them to go at the end of their shift.
I can personally vouch for the fact that trams are terrifying, whether in a car or on foot. At least once a month here in Melbourne someone gets ground underneath.
Don't forget, the municipality will be supplying the drivers. Now imagine your typical boy racer bus driver, transplanted something three times heavier with half the control.
And you're surprised, Seabee? A few years ago, the major road outside my university was dug up, widened, and given a median strip with lovely palm trees and red brick sidewalks. Then two months later the improvement dug up to make way for the tunnel and airport expansion.
It is to laugh.
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