Is it me?

The GulfNews expressed mild concern the other day...

"In planning Dubai, inadequate thought has been given to its expansion and its consequences, the location of residential accommodation in relation to office and industrial space, the need for proper access and egress by road, the need for adequate parking facilities not only for residents in the immediate vicinity - something sadly lacking in many areas - but also for visitors to the area."

In the other local daily 7 Days welcomes the opening of the new Business Bay Bridge, which seems to be relieving traffic congestion across the Dubai Creek. But what I retained from the article is this:

"The Business Bay Bridge has seven lanes in the Bur Dubai to Deira direction, a capacity sufficient to serve 14,000 vehicles per hour."

Keep this value, this metric in mind as I continue and express not just mild concern but serious consternation.

Think Palm Islands... well known world-wide as among the wonders of New Dubai.




The photos above (borrowed from the GulfNews) show the construction progress of the Palm Jumeirah.

(Passing thought... why would the seriously affluent want to live in villas built as close to each other as bungalows on a post-war English housing estate?)

There was an estimate that the total population of the Palm Jumeirah will be around 60,000 residents. Another metric to hold onto (in spite of the report today that a further re-design is causing a pause in the construction work, possibly to allow for more housing units to be added).

In the last of the above shots I have circled in orange the bridge connecting the bold new development to the mainland. I've crossed that bridge, thanks to a confused taxi driver who took the wrong turn somewhere in the highway confusion of Media City. The bridge was wide but not, as I recall, seven lanes wide.

So let us hope that not more than one-in-four island residents will feel the need to drive across each morning at rush hour. It might just work.

But...

There are two more Palm Islands under construction, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira. Each of these will provide accomodation for one million residents.

Let us speculate, quite reasonably, that one-in-four of these have jobs. In the graphic on the left I have identified four bridges which appear to provide access from the Palm Deira to the mainland.

Let us, further, assume that they are big, fat bridges like the Business Bay Bridge mentioned at the start of this post.

So with these bridges we can get about 56,000 vehicles off the island per hour. So if one-in-four residents need to get to their desks at 9 am the rush hour is going to start 5 hours earlier?

Is my math fatally flawed? Certainly there will be water-borne transportation, maybe even a monorail here and there, or extensions to the Metro. There will be indeed some cars with more than one occupant.

A cynic might say that the problem will solve itself; so few people will see living on any of the Palm Islands as a truly attractive proposition that the traffic chaos will never transpire.

Which is an answer of sorts, I guess.