Monday, December 10, 2007

RTA comes clean

It's all about getting our private cars off the roads folks. That's The Grand Plan.

As I said in my post 'Stupid, stupid me' last month, it took a while for me to see the obvious, but now the RTA has come clean.

In the new Emirates Business 24/7 (who on earth came up with that for a title?) there's the admission that Salik is to be extended to cover all major roads and Creek crossings. The objective is to "encourage people to use public transport."

Bad news for the huge number of Dubai's workforce who live in Sharjah because of the impossibly high rents in Dubai - all the gateways between the two emirates will be toll-controlled.

If they, and the rest of us, are going to have to use public transport to get around I hope we're going to actually get an efficient public transport system.

The story in Emirates Business 24/7 is here.

3 comments:

i*maginate said...

OMG Dhs. 600mil for current Salik revenues p.a. means that Salik gates are passed through at least ca. 411,000times daily! Unbelievable figures!

Seabee said...

i*maginate, well spotted. I hadn't worked out the maths - that is an amazing figure.

And just think how many more cars are running the same route but avoiding the Salik gates, such as by Mall of the Emirates.

The numbers really are staggering.

i*maginate said...

Yes, and the estimate Dhs. 600 mil provided to the press is probably conservative. My guess is that it must be much more. So many cars using Salik, and my guess is at least 1/4 of that amount are "Salik-dodgers" - what other explanation is there for the excessive jams at the Mall of the Emirates and Greens exits before the gates at peak times.

I wonder what toll charges will be implemented at the new gates, what the metro charges will be, and if traffic will indeed be "clearer" in due course.

I still cannot understand why there is a bottleneck at the Barsha tollgates despite the tollgates, and traffic is chocka-block from 5-6.30pm on SZR heading towards Dubai at peak times.

It's really not too late to implement other "solutions" while the city is still relatively "young".