Discovery Gardens residents frustrated with traffic mess

Dubai: While traffic congestion has eased up on several Dubai roads recently, residents of Discovery Gardens complain they now have clogged roads.

They say it takes them a frustratingly long time to exit and enter Discovery Gardens from Shaikh Zayed Road — the only road link to the fast developing community near Ibn Battuta Mall.

"I can't take it any more because it takes me 40 to 45 minutes to cover a distance of about one kilometre just to get out of Discovery Gardens to reach the Shaikh Zayed Road in the morning," said Sheela Chandran, an event coordinator.

She said the same distance takes about two minutes if the traffic is normal. She moved from Sharjah late last year to avoid traffic congestion but ended up in the same situation.

She said she leaves home at 7am and reaches her Bur Dubai office at around 8.20am. Similarly, she like hundreds of other residents, face a huge traffic mess while going back home at around 6pm.

50 minutes

"There is so much traffic that the queues tail back to Shaikh Zayed Road from inside the community," she said. She said that motorists also have to spend more than 40 to 50 minutes just to get to their homes from the Shaikh Zayed Road interchange exit, which are otherwise a two to five minutes drive.

Brinda, another resident, noted that the situation got worse in the middle of last year when a lot of people started moving to the area after the rents were lowered.

"I have been living here since 2008 and never faced [a] traffic issue until [the] middle of last year," she said. She said the area is very popular with people who work in Abu Dhabi.

Gulf News conducted a survey and found that there is only one direct access road to the community which is located between Shaikh Zayed Road and Emirates Road. The community was supposed to have road link to the Emirates Road as well but it was never completed.

There is only a two-lane entrance road from the interchange next to Ibn Battuta Mall and it turns into a single lane road inside the community and is not enough to cope with the increasing vehicular traffic.

Motorists jump lanes in the morning and evening rush hours (7am to 9.30am and 6pm to 8pm) and further add to the traffic mess.

When contacted, a Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) official said it was not their job to build road inside this freehold community.

Discovery Gardens, which was developed by Nakheel, is 26 million square foot freehold residential community. It consists of 291 buildings. Approximately, 60,000 people live in the area.

Residents say the authorities concerned should provide more road links to bring some relief to residents.


Do you live in the Discovery Gardens area? Do you experience this traffic on a daily bassi? Do you know of any other areas like this? Tell us