DUBAI, 4 November 2003 — The Gulf tourist and trade hub Dubai has decided to invite tenders for a 15 billion dirham ($4 billion) Light Rail Transport project, a first metro for the region.
A committee overseeing the two-phase scheme met at municipal headquarters in the city-state on Sunday and gave the green light in a bid to ease traffic congestion and pollution, Gulf News reported yesterday.
The first line running 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the neighboring emirate of Sharjah in the north to the container port of Jebel Ali in the south is expected to open in June 2010. A second line would be ready three years later covering 19 kilometers (12 miles) from the international airport into the city.
Studies are still being carried out into a 2.1 billion dirham ($572 million) extension to Dubai Festival City, one of the multi-billion-dollar mega-projects already under way in Dubai. A total of 57 stations will serve a population predicted to triple to three million or more by 2020, in a bid to limit congestion as the number of vehicles on the roads grows to a projected 350,000. The network, described by Gulf News as “noise-free and environmentally friendly” will include underground, surface and elevated sections. Only Saudi Arabia has any railway infrastructure on the Arabian Peninsula, a standard line covering 450 kilometers (280 miles) between Riyadh and Dammam on the Gulf coast. However it has launched a massive scheme to build 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of tracks to link the vast Kingdom.