UAE | Traffic and Transport
Surprised motorists have easy run on Al Ittihad Road
Traffic was unusually thin on Monday morning, baffling office-goers.
- By Sunita Menon, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:03 May 13, 2008
- Motorists had an easy time in Sharjah as well as on Al Ittihad Road on Monday.
- Image Credit: Ahmed Ramzan/Gulf News
Dubai: Nobody believed that it could be a breeze driving on Al Ittihad Road and that too on a Monday morning.
This particular stretch of Al Ittihad Road, which leads to Al Mamzar, Al Qusais, Al Garhoud and Al Maktoum districts, for some strange reason breathed easy on Monday instead of being choked with long serpentine queues of slow-moving traffic.
Traffic authorities from Dubai and Sharjah were unable to provide any particular reason behind this change in scenario as there were no diversions or openings of alternative roads or flyovers.
The travel time for Dubai-bound motorists was reduced by more than an hour, but no one knew why. Alternative roads such as Beirut and Damascus Roads, which link Dubai and Sharjah, also had only light traffic.
Unbelievable
"It was a sheer delight to drive on Al Ittihad Road to work yesterday. I arrived at work cheerful and happy," said Adil Yousuf, an Egyptian motorist.
For many motorists it took them slightly less than half an hour to reach their destinations in Deira, Bur Dubai and Shaikh Zayed Road or Media City.
"It was like a dream come true for me when I got on Al Ittihad Road from Al Wahada. The time was a little over 7.45am and I was able to cruise at 100km/h. It was unbelievable," said Faisal Malek, a Pakistani motorist.
"I thought I had missed out on a holiday announcement, and called up one of my colleagues at work to enquire. He said it was just another normal working day. For the first time I drove to work without swearing at fellow motorists," said Malek, who normally takes not less than an hour and a half to drive from Sharjah to his office at Internet City in Dubai.
Traffic, however, was sticky as usual for Dubai-bound motorists who opted for the Emirates Road and the Dubai bypass.
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