USA2UAE.COM

From denial to the Nile

A new year dawns, and with it some big changes for Lola LebCan. After many happy years in Sheikh Zayed Road’s prestigious Orifice Towers building, Dubai’s PR queen is being forced to pack her bags. Either that, or have thousands of labourers gaze at her naked splendour in the shower every morning as the new Dubai Metro whizzes right past her window.

But like many long-term expats, Dubai has palled for Lola. The once-glittering heights of SZR’s skyscrapers are but dusty glass. The glamourous sandlands social whirl is a shallow chore. There is no joy, no inspiration and the city, Lola says, is “soulless”. She has even swapped karaoke at Harry Ghatto’s for this festive lament:

Deck the malls with discount banners
Fallah-lalala-lala-lala

Join the bankrupt Jumeira mamas
Fallah-lalala-lala-lalaaaa*

Two years ago, Lola fled to Egypt for sanctuary. She now plans to seek the healing waters of the Nile once more and work on her Masri twang. Plus there are around 40 million men in Egypt, compared to just 2.5 million in the UAE.

*(c) Lola LebCan 2008

Comments

Worse than usual road chaos

It was bad wasn’t it. Yesterday was worse than ever on the roads.

It all started at about 4.30am when a mobile crane working on the Metro station outside Emirates Towers on Sheikh Zayed Road collapsed onto a roadsign gantry.

Police closed the road so that another crane could be brought in to support the collapsed one, which was later cut into pieces and removed. Checks on the safety of the gantry also had to be carried out. It took about eight hours until the road was reopened.

Photo Hadrian Hernandez. Gulf News

I was trying to get along Al Wasl Road but that was jammed too.

As ever, the problem wasn’t just the volume of traffic but the attitude of too many drivers.

On Al Wasl tthere was a front-on crash at a traffic light junction, so obviously one of them had jumped the red light. That didn’t help the heavy traffic load.

Then we had the usual arrogant, inconsiderate morons using the service road to get ahead and then pushing their way into the traffic. That slows everything down even more of course.

All of that had me fuming, and it didn’t get any better.

In the evening the ten minute drive from Knowledge Village to Dubai Marina took a fraction under one hour.

We have the inevitable planning incompetence, the recently finished roads were all wrong so they’ve been dug up. So we have single lanes, cones and diversions everywhere, temporary roundabouts. But that’s normal so wasn’t the cause of the extra chaos yesterday.

I don’t know what it was because I didn’t see any crashes or new road changes.

But once again the morons added to the delays, using the hard shoulders and closed lanes to get in front, then forcing their way in.

In KV I also had to take avoiding action for a brainless jogger who looked up to see if the road was clear, saw me coming and continued to trot across right in front of me.

And in Dubai Marina, where there’s little or no street lighting, construction arclights shining into the eyes of motorists, shadows everywhere, as usual there were labourers in dark clothing wandering in the roads, backs to and completely ignoring the traffic.

It wasn’t a good trip.

By the way, coming back to the arrogance of drivers, here’s an example.

Clear ‘No Entry’ signs. There are actually three of them.

And a row of vehicles driving past them the wrong way down a one way road.

One thing I didn’t see in all the chaos, the dangerous driving, the jaywalking, was a policeman. Not one.

One more thing which demonstrates the attitude of drivers.

Gulf News quote this motorist. According to Rabiaah Fahad, a motorist, no one should be blamed in such a situation, as it was an accident. “Crane accidents are as unexpected as car accidents,” said Fahad. “If this accident is unacceptable then we should not drive at all.”

That’s the attitude folks. Accidents happen, nothing causes them, just accept it all as inevitable.

Accidents don’t happen, they are caused.

The crane collapsed is being investigated but was probably, according to police, due to overloading.

Vehicle ‘accidents’ are caused by motorists driving into things.

With the driving I see every day car ‘accidents’ are not, as Mr Fahad believes, unexpected, they’re inevitable. High as our crash rate is, I’m amazed it’s not much higher.

Gulf News has the crane collapse and traffic chaos story here.

Get ready for traffic chaos.

You think Dubai’s traffic is bad now? Just wait until the final work on the Creek extension starts!

The RTA has announced the final extension of the Creek from Business Bay to rejoin the Gulf near Jumeirah Beach Park.

This final stage is only just over 2km long…but it crosses Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Wasl Road and Jumeirah Beach Road.

A report in Gulf News says that this stage will be carried out in three phases and will be compete by the end of 2010. I hope by ‘three phases’ they mean that only one road at a time will be affected.

Bridges have to be built, which means some major diversions, which in turn means major chaos.

Just think about SZR. Twelve lanes of traffic, six in each direction, with a 100kph speed limit, to be diverted around a massive bridge that has to be built.

Is there room for the diversion? I suppose there must be but I can’t picture it.

From Business Bay the waterway will continue across SZR near Dubai Metroplolitan Hotel and the Emirates building, alongside Safa Park to cross Al Wasl Road, then straight out across Beach Road to the sea near Jumeirah Beach Park.

For those last two crossings surely some villas are going to have to be demolished – not just for the waterway but also for the diversions as the bridges are being built. Both roads are dual carriageways, Beach Road being six lanes and Al Wasl being four.

The story, photos and a map are here.