Space Age Mass Transit

Dubai is putting in a big Metro rail system. It's the first in the Middle East.  In the downtown area, it's below ground.  On my side of town, it's elevated on viaducts.  It's a fully automated system--no drivers or attendants.  Right now, two of the five proposed lines are operational.

While I was downtown yesterday, I got an opportunity to get up close and personal to one of the train stations.   It's pretty impressive.  The entries and stations are very high tech looking.  It makes me think of the 'city of the future' designs published in the 1960's.  It's a streamlined, space age design.

The trains run every ten minutes or so and from all reports, they are really convenient.  They've done some pretty interesting things with these stations.

You see how the windows swoop down around the triangular roof?  They have 'sold' this as advertising space on some of the stations.  So you can drive by and see one where there is a graphic of the roller coaster at Ferrarri World going down and then up this glass.  I'm pretty sure it's the film stuff like they wrap buses in.  It does make an effective advertising space.  All these stations that I've seen are paralleling large roads and next to major areas of commerce, buildings and industry.

The scale of these structures is immense, but it also is very iconic.  You know exactly what you're looking at and you don't mistake the building for anything else.  I think I prefer this to the entrances to the subways in London or Paris, where if you miss the signage, you're liable to miss the place.

The viaduct system with the raised tracks moves the rail passengers and cars above the street level and really provides a clean, contemporary look to what is a useful urban transportation system.  In this picture, you see the tall, tall buildings preferred in Dubai and how little real estate is actually taken up by the rail line in front of them.

I haven't ridden the trains yet.  I'm sure I will soon.  We live so far out, that we'd have to drive to get to a station to ride the train.  We might find some destination where it would be preferable to park and ride, but so far, nothing has come up.

I think the economic crisis that has plagued Dubai for the past few years has affected plans for the additional lines.  I hope they get around to finishing off this system, it seems to be very well used by commuters.  And I've been told that it really reduced traffic on the major highways.

I'll take more pictures of the inside of the stations when I get a chance to ride a train.  Also, there's supposed to be a monorail that goes out the length of the Palm Jumeirah and actually goes over the ocean.  That might be a fun one to take.  Very touristy destination.  Now that the weather has cooled off some, I'm going to get out and start seeing the sights.

--Sandee Wagner