Smart planning is the key to solving traffic congestion as the UAE grows

Dubai's roads have become much more congested as the population has increased in recent years. Chris Whiteoak / The National

As Dubai’s skyline stretches ever higher and its population surges steadily upwards, its roads increasingly show the signs of this extraordinary growth. As many metropolises have discovered, living in a city on the move can often mean spending a large amount of time in stationary traffic.

While congestion on the roads may be an inevitable symptom of societal boom times, it can nonetheless bear a heavy cost for everyone. In public-messaging campaigns, the focus is often on safety; it is well-established that congestion can lead to accidents. But there is a range of other – often very expensive – externalities. Congestion reduces the productivity of the labour force, inflates transport costs (and, by extension, the price of other services and goods) and increases carbon emissions from idle exhaust fumes. There is also a mental toll: last year, Dubai drivers lost nearly a day and a half of time that could have been spent doing other things sitting instead in unusually high traffic.

Few cities, moreover, have grown as quickly as Dubai, where the population has doubled in the past 15 years. Nearby Abu Dhabi, for its part, has grown by 50 per cent in the past decade, with 7.5 per cent population growth last year alone. In the Northern Emirates, a host of development projects are expected to raise investment and resident numbers in the coming years. Consequently, authorities have had to plan quickly to ensure that transport infrastructure can keep up. In recent weeks, an ambitious portfolio of projects and planning initiatives has been announced to that end.

Emirates Road to be widened to tackle traffic congestion

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This week, the UAE unveiled a Dh750 million ($204 million) expansion of Emirates Road, a key artery linking Dubai and the Northern Emirates. The project, announced by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, will add three lanes in each direction across a 16-kilometre stretch, boosting the road’s capacity to 12,000 vehicles per hour and offering relief to hundreds of thousands of daily commuters.

Last year, Dubai drivers lost nearly a day and a half of time that could have been spent doing other things

The announcement came on the heels of another major investment: a Dh633 million ($172 million) plan to upgrade roads in Dubai’s financial district. The project will cut congestion on one of the city’s busiest routes, the portion of Al Mustaqbal Street stretching from Zabeel Palace Street to Financial Centre Street, via three tunnels, a bridge and a lane-expansion. The result will be a better commuter experience for thousands of people who move in and out of Downtown Dubai every day.

These projects are part of a wider constellation of efforts towards integrated urban planning to future-proof the country. The UAE is increasingly leveraging technology, data and design to not only manage congestion but also enhance safety and sustainability. Smart traffic signals, dynamically priced toll roads, improved pedestrian zones and the development of public transit networks are all part of this strategy.

Solving the problem of congestion is not easy. But the tools UAE cities are using to tackle it are the right ones. And the level of investment being pumped into transport infrastructure provides plenty of cause for optimism that the way ahead is clear.