Sunday, February 21, 2010

Metro completion delayed again

While it's clear that work has been continuing on the Metro, you can see workers on the stations and bridges along the Red Line, it's obvious that they're way behind with completion.

Now the official word is that the opening of the remaining eighteen stations has been put back, with seven due to open on April 25 and the final eleven opening 'in phases' on unspecified dates.

I think most of the seven new stations will encourage more people to use the Metro because of their convenient locations. They're at Ibn Battutu, Dubai Marina, World Trade Centre, Karama and Terminal 1 at the airport, plus the stupidly named GGICO Station (Al Garhoud) and Emirates Station (which people will confuse with Termnal 3 I'm sure).

Mrs Seabee had to go to Terminal 3 last week at peak traffic time so she decided to take her first trip on the Metro. Taxi to MoE station from her office in Knowledge Village, Metro from there right into the terminal. Quicker, easier, less stressful than driving, quicker and cheaper than a taxi all the way so she gave it a thumbs up.

As for the Green Line opening, that's been put back yet again, this time to August 2011.




Gulf News has the story here.

6 comments:

Mazhar Mohad said...

Emirates Station is the Emirates Airlines Group HQ. So it makes sense to have it called Emirates Station. There are Terminal 1 and 3 stations so its not likely to confuse with them.

But full on with you about GGICO station. I have always argued that branding is fine for a extra money considering their massive infrastructure investment but at-least then call it GGICO Garhoud rather than just GGICO. Hopefully RTA will do this in near future even if it means writing inside brackets as how Gulf News has done.

Dave said...

I love the way that the official rta website still has the Metro stopping at the 'Burj Dubai / Dubai Mall' station.

Seabee said...

MM, I have a feeling that tourists travelling on Emirates Airline may get confused and go to Emirates Station when they head back to the airport.

Dave, it's par for the course for organisations here to have websites anything up to several years out of date.

Unknown said...

I'm with Seabee on the naming. The name should be designed for the benefit of the customer and designed to avoid confusion - "Emirates station" would be much more sensibly named after the terminal. Local residents will know the difference, but tourists and business visitors won't.

Then again Nakheel Harbour and Towers would be more sensibly named Nakheel Park and Ride (or even The Outer Car Park) !

siddiq said...

why its keep delayed

Seabee said...

Siddiq, the biggest problem is that the contractors were not being paid, so they slowed down the work.