Traffic (Or The Increasing Mess On The Mileiha Road)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Only a charlatan would post about the weather or traffic.

It goes something like this. The construction of Sharjah's new 'middle road' linking the city centre to the Mileiha road has allowed the morning traffic to flow out to the 611 (neologistically The Emirates Road) and the evening traffic to flow back. There's just one teensy weensy problemette here, in that whatever genius conceived said road decided the conjoining of the two should be a traffic light rather than a 'clover leaf' exchange. The result has been that as an increasing number of commuters have discovered the shortcut, the traffic has backed up at the light more each morning.

The Anjads used to rock up and turn the lights off, which worked handsomely, but now they've stopped. And so the traffic has found other ways out to the 611, further up the airport/Dhaid road and turning at the University or the road down through the residential areas to the Sharjah Inland Container Terminal.

The result has been to spread the increasing chaos. The pressure of the roadworks on the Emirates road has meant more drivers are willing to go to greater lengths to try and get out to the 611. In short, it's not pretty.

It's like watching sand pouring through marbles. This route blocks up, that route gets busy. That one blocks up, the other one gets busy. There's simply too much traffic trying to find its way through too small a ratrun - and it's growing noticeably busier out there.

You can do traffic studies until you go blue in the face, but the situation you're studying is constantly fluid and subject to massive change in the next few months. When the National Paints remediation is finished we'll finally see if it is enough - or too little, too late. It'll take a few weeks for things to settle down and a complete picture emerge as word gets around and the traffic patterns shift as a consequence.

I can only hope it does, because we travel on the Mileiha Road to Sarah's school every day and it's starting to look ugly every which way. And I'm talking 06.15am here, not 'rush hour'...

Sharjah Traffic Survey Masterplan Scheme Thingy Shock Horror

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We're about halfway through Sharjah's traffic survey, a project started in September and slated for completion in November. Traffic counters have been spotted on roundabouts, while we are told that thousands of residents will be surveyed with a number of different methodologies, including being asked questions while we sit in traffic.

Irony alert.

The survey aims to find out what we really want from transport. The answer has already been identified for us as more public transport, but we've got to be asked first.

Now comes the news that controversial consultancy AECOM has bagged a $4 million contract to draw up a 'master plan' for Sharjah's transportation network, to be ready by 2015. Amongst other things, AECOM will work on 'developing a scheme appraisal framework', whatever that is. Apparently the study will also lead to 'fostering modal shift towards public transport and collective modes.'

Which means more public transport, no? It's always nice to see a study of a problem that sets out already having identified the solution. It's so much more comforting that way.

Mind you, it's funny they're going to all this effort when a few hours looking at Nokia's brilliant Here Maps mobile app could tell them what we all know - the traffic overlay shows traffic density at near real-time, with free roads painted green, cloggy roads orange and jams outlined in a neat red. You can watch the morning developing quite nicely on your mobile in the comfort of your stationary car.

All roads east and south are routinely screwed, turning nicely red as the morning develops. The Road Formerly Known As The Emirates Road is a car park from about 6am onwards, stretching from the infamous National Paints (remember that 'it'll be done in April'? Yeah, right) all the way back to the airport road and beyond towards Ajman. The airport road bungs up, too - a combination of traffic leaving for the backed-up TRFKATER and the blinding sunrise on that wee bend before the university conspiring to cause it all to gum up back to Culture Roundabout.

Beirut's totally banjaxed, despite Dubai's sneaky Dhs4 collecting mechanism, while Al Wahda/Ittihad goes the same way (traffic backs up by the Faisal Street and Al Khan turnoffs first) from about 5.30am. Everyone hoys off from about 7am to take their kids to school so all roads East clog up very nicely thank you, with Anjads peeping and flailing at people as they try to smooth the way through key roundabouts of which Sharjah has many (and they're all called squares. Figure.).

The schools area - because zoning all schools together in an area with limited access is a clever idea - becomes a snarling mass of jostling entitlement. The Middle Road gums up from the schools area towards the city and again where it joins the Mileiha Road, because some genius at some time in recent history decided not to put in an intersection at the junction of two relatively new and planned major arterial roads, but instead plonk a chaos-inducing traffic light there instead.

This is all repeated, in reverse, in the evening, with TRFKATER south blocking up while the Northern lane jam stretches back to Mirdiff City Centre. The Middle Road access to TRFKATER then backs up.  Ittihad blocks up back to Garhoud and Nahda through Al Arouba Street just gets chicken oriental from about 4pm onwards. Basically, a lot of very unhappy and frustrated people gather and try to make themselves feel better by upsetting other people.

And it's all getting worse as we move back into mega-project announcing mode.

There we go, job done. No, no thanks necessary. This here matchbox contains your scheme appraisal framework. You just have to remember never to open it or it'll stop working. You can just pop that $4 million in my HSBC account and they'll somehow conspire to lose it or turn it into cat litter or something.