Dubai: For Dubai, the Metro has evolved into something more than about moving passengers from Point A to Point B (and back) through its 15 years in operation.
In fact, in recent times, the Metro and its expansion has been the engine transforming the city’s landscape and liveability, especially in newer and emerging locations.
It is visible in the way new residential communities and commercial hubs are taking shape in Dubai, and the speed at which these are being created.
Clearly, the Dubai Metro is central to this transformation. “Developers (in Dubai) will have to increasingly focus on the provision of suitable urban infrastructure around their development,” said a recent report issued by the consultancy CBRE specifically on the connection between the Metro and the factors that shape/reshape the Dubai property market.
“Early evidence suggests that developments which have such conducive urban infrastructure and boast proximity to the Metro are already significantly outperforming both on price and rental terms.”
Developers, landlords and investors have taken this mantra to heart. It is unlikely that a single offplan property launch these days will not figure 10- or 15-minute ‘proximity to the Dubai Metro’ as a key selling point.
And it’s been a USP that property buyers are willing to buy into.
Hard infrastructure plays its part
Many reasons play their part in pulling new residents and businesses to set up base in Dubai. There is the quality of life the city promises, the favourable conditions for businesses to launch and thrive, whether that’s a light industrial unit planning to launch in Dubai Industrial City or a new-age virtual asset entity wanting to offer its services to wealthy investors in the country.
There’s the Dubai International Airport, Emirates airline and flydubai, and all the bustling hotels, offices, free zones and residential options a new person or entity needs.
It’s in step with these factors that Dubai’s ‘hard infrastructure’ plays its part - the roads and highways and, of course, the Dubai Metro.
“This is where Dubai has been scoring consistently high, that it’s been able to expand its infra without waiting for demand to catch up,” said an ex-banker and now a consultant with a DIFC firm. “You saw that with Emirates’ placing those mammoth new aircraft orders through the years. And you see it now in Dubai expanding the city, and using the Metro to speed the process through.”
15 years, 2.4b passengers - and counting
The bare numbers that make up the Dubai Metro to date are compelling. All of 2.4 billion passengers making their way on the Metro lines since the launch of operations in September 2009. Which will gradually build up to a higher level once the Blue Line gets into full throttle by end of this decade.
The RTA paints a clear picture of what the new line can offer. The “Blue Line will be offering coverage to key routes in the city’s network, which will make travelling across Dubai’s areas more efficient, quick, and convenient.
This will contribute greatly to the city’s sustainable development as metro lines reduce street traffic, creating more eco-friendly transportation alternatives.”
What the Blue Line will do connect - seamlessly - five of Dubai’s primary metropolitan urban regions. In turn, ‘creating straightforward routes between them to ease travelling for residents, tourists, and visitors’, is how RTA says it.
All the way down to the shiny new mixed-use destination that is being created in parallel - the Expo City. Each part of the Blue Line project thus creates its own corridor of growth for the future.
Something that businesses and their owners are not losing sight of. Avinash Babur is CEO of InsuranceMarket.ae, which has just bagged the naming rights for the Mashreq Metro Station for a 10-year term.
“As a homegrown brand, we are inspired by Dubai’s relentless growth,” said Babur. “To be part of this journey is a responsibility.”
It’s a sentiment that will echo with other stakeholders in the city, its businesses and residents alike. Current ones and those who will call Dubai their bae in years to come.
In all this, there is the Dubai Metro to speed the growth story through…
