Dubai: Motorists should avoid unnecessary trips to Bur Dubai, as the first major traffic diversion for the Metro project will be in place from Friday at BurJuman intersection.
The intersection of Khalid Bin Waleed Road and Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Road in front of the BurJuman Centre would be turned into a roundabout with signals to pave the way for the construction of a major underground Metro station, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced.
The roundabout would remain there till 2009.
The BurJuman underground Metro station will be one of the two major underground stations where the Red and Green lines cross each other. The other one will be in Deira.
The BurJuman station will have four entrances, one of which will open towards the mall. The whole intersection in front of BurJuman will be dug up for the construction.
An RTA official said the 'cut and cover' technique is being used to construct a tunnel on Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Road and accordingly, the tunnel diaphragm wall excavation is going on.
The tunnel would act as a gateway to the Metro trains arriving to and departing from BurJuman station towards Al Karama station, which will be an elevated one, he said.
RTA started work on the 52.1km Red Line the first phase of the Metro Project with massive digging at some major sites.
Construction on the second phase of the project 17.6km Green Line would start at the end of this year.
While the residents and motorists have already started feeling the pinch with the start of construction at a few sites, more hassles are in store as the construction work expands and continues over the next four years till 2010.
RTA officials asked motorists to be patient and considerate as the Metro would ultimately benefit them.
"We have four years of construction work but the completion time of the project is much less as compared to the time taken to complete Metro projects in any country in the world," engineer Adnan A. Al Hammadi, Director of the Construction Department of the Dubai Metro at RTA, told Gulf News in an earlier interview.
Al Hammadi said all sites of the Metro project would be under construction between 2007 and 2009 with construction work at some sites continuing till March 2010.
A comprehensive traffic diversion plan would be in place within a couple of weeks and it would be amended as per requirements.
"We are trying our best to minimise any traffic disturbance," he added. The main components of the Metro project include the tunnels, the underground stations, the elevated stations, the viaducts and the depots.
It was decided to construct tunnels at the Central Business Districts to avoid impact on the traffic in the centre of the town.
Traffic would be diverted around the elevated stations, which are long and narrow and would be little threat to traffic.
The station at the Union Square, Deira, which would be the biggest of all, would have no impact on traffic because it is being constructed under the park.
Construction time on the Red Line
Estimated construction time at the current sites on Red Line of the Dubai Metro Project:
- BurJuman underground station: May 2006 to July 2009
- Al Rigga underground station: May 2006 to August 2009
- Port Saeed (City Centre) underground station: June 2006 to July 2009
- Union Square underground station: February 2006 to September 2009
