Waste of millions of dollars in direct costs, waste of materials, waste in lost productivity as people struggle around the unnecessary extra construction, extra air pollution.
All because the planners got it wrong. Inexcusably.
You see it all around all the time, from the holescaping as I call it, endlessly digging holes in established landscaping/roads/footpaths, to major road changes.
Dubai Marina/Knowledge Village are local examples for me.
One of the entrances into KV, a great new road, access from SZR in one direction and Al Sufouh Road in the other. Finished and opened only a few weeks ago, with a set of traffic lights at the actual entrance to KV. Obviously carefully planned that way, presumably with traffic volume, road safety issues, driving standards all taken into account - as they would be by competent planners.
This is it today:
Traffic lights gone, road dug up, a completely different junction of some sort being created. Just weeks after the original opened.
Here's Dubai Marina Phase One. Again the planners would have taken projected population, projected visitors, traffic volume, ease of access/egress, safety into account.
Wouldn't they?
Of course they would, that's what planners do.
Isn't it?
Obviously not Dubai planners.
The completed road now looks like this:
A complete rethink. Corners changed, access changed, roundabouts going in...nothing like the original plan.
With all the tools at their command to get things correct, how can they get it all so wrong. This is gross incompetence.
4 comments:
Yeah - what's with that intersection into KV? It completely confused me the other day with no traffic lights.
And as for the Marina, it's so dangerous now. Nobody recognises the 2 roundabouts that have been created at the tower entrances, because the signage is about 30 feet away from where people should be slowing down to yield. This morning I had to wait in the middle of the road for 10 cars to go sailing through before I could turn left, and I had the right of way! Luckily I never make the assumption that I do have the right, otherwise our car would be looking pretty sad right now!
Roundabouts? With the volume of traffic that will eventually come down that road? They've just finished taking OUT the roundabouts on Al Wasl Road and Jumeirah Beach Road because they used to cause huge tailbacks morning and evening. Another band-aid solution!
The situation is bizarre. The KV junction is particularly insane - no signs, a pointless u turn that has a traffic light inbetween the two lanes that gets crashed into once a week...
DIC is full of nicely landscaped areas covering the space between each side of the road, all of which have now been destroyed by ongoing works. Why build it like that in first place?
Having been through a few planning meetings the last two weeks on road, water and electrical infrastructure and realising just how detailed and exact Dubai Municipality's planning requirements are, it is still amazing to see the amount of mistakes being made.
Case in point is the wonderful new Arabian Ranches interchange. On paper it makes no sense. It is a whole jumble of overpasses, underpasses, crossings, mergers and every other term used to describe road mashed into one big blob.
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