Misery of Dubai commuters

Posted: 13 September 2008

It has been hardly a year since the first 2 toll gates: Al Garhoud Bridge and Al Barsha were installed on the Dubai roads. For those who are new to Dubai and Salik, I suggest searching for Salik and browsing through its website to understand its technology and pricing. Let's go back to when it all started.


July 2007
Within few weeks of installing the first phase of gates, the local authority - RTA happily announced that their so-called plan of reducing traffic has worked. As I state, it was July, and traffic in Dubai is minimum as majority of the citizens and denizens are out of the country to escape the summer heat.

September 2007
Everyone except the RTA realised how much they are suffering due to the toll gates, as most of the working population reside in Sharjah, and the shortest route (distance-wise) from Sharjah to Jebel Ali was the Garhoud Bridge to the Shaikh Zayed Road (SZR) where now stand the 2 Salik gates.

March 2008
Al Garhoud Bridge expanded from 6 lanes (3 lanes each direction) to 13 lanes (6 in one direction and 7 in the other). Despite that, I've read people still complaining of traffic towards Sharjah during peak hours.

May 2008
In less than a calender year of people barely managing their time and money (on tolls, of course!)for their daily trips, RTA announced the second phase of Salik. The second phase involves installing 2 more salik gates - one at Al Maktoum Bridge and other at Al Safa, which is located between 1st & 2nd interchange of SZR (again!).

September 2008
The 2nd phase starts on the 9th morning of September, with many commuters opting for alternate routes (Well, I feel some were practicing on 8th also, as floating bridge had unusual traffic towards deira at 3 pm). Even news channels like City7 and Gulf News Videos also commented that Al Wasl road was totally blocked. City7 also reported that Al Safa toll gate witnessed the same amount of traffic.

One week after Salik Phase 2 is fully operational, the situation on Salik and non-Salik routes is the same... on 15th I noticed heavy traffic on SZR 1st interchange towards Abu Dhabi. Traffic has increased on Al Shindagha Tunnel and Floating Bridges during afternoon hours, when Ramadan work hours end.

And on 16th September in Gulf News, RTA claims success with Salik gates. You can read through their article where they clearly state it is contrary to public opinion.



Now, Why do I say people are suffering?


Firstly, the toll itself. I happened to read through one of the comments on a daily newspaper. The person has broken down the toll calculation as follows:
Per day - AED 24 x 250 working days in a year = AED 6000.
That's a monthly salary of an average employee in the UAE!! With the already rising expenses of food, clothing and shelter, this is a huge burden on the working population.
The toll itself costs more than the fuel/gas charges for a single trip.

Secondly, the number of cars on UAE roads are increasing daily, adding to the traffic.

Thirdly, the taxis are expensive to use on a daily basis, especially on longer routes. More recently, taxi drivers do not accept passengers who plan to travel a short route.
And you can forget catching a cab to Sharjah, unless you have used "call-a-cab" service, as none of the drivers believe in wasting his time in Sharjah traffic.

Next, RTA encourages people to use public buses. As a regular commuter in buses, I observe no fixed timing/schedule of the buses. Plus, try waiting for any bus at a stop in between, eg. Karama, and you can keep waiting forever as there is not even a standing space by the time the bus arrives at your stop. Even the shortest route like No. 5 & 42 take atleast 1-1.5 hours for a one-way route.

Furthermore, RTA now encourages legalisedcarpooling, after it had once started (during Dec 07 to June 08) issuing fines starting from Dhs. 2000 + black points + car impound. I am sure this must have clearly discouraged some people to use carpooling since then.

Well, I suppose it would be quite exhaustive to read, as it has been to write, but it seems there is no 'escape' route to Dubai and Sharjah traffic. I may conclude by saying that the fault lies in both the traffic system and people's lifestyle in the city. Had the authorities thought earlier of road expansions and metro, the situation would've been different now. The metro might be partially successful in solving the problem, not completely.
Public buses are less hope, coz they themselves are part of the traffic, so can't really rely on them.
Toll gates haven't really help reduce traffic, only divert them to alternate routes, causing more congestion in other areas, and add revenue to RTA.