Dubai gears up for schools' rush-hour

Published Tuesday, September 04, 2012

By Shuchita Kapur

Many residents in Dubai may wake up to traffic congestion once again as schools reopen in the city. The traffic crawls during rush hours, especially in communities where there are just two-lane roads.

However, some community schools are in touch with RTA to facilitate free flowing traffic during office hours in the morning.

A case in point is Dubai British School (DBS) in the popular residential area of The Springs. According to the school principal, the new bridge that has been built will help school goers and at the same time ease traffic.

“RTA have built a bridge across a highway between Springs 14, where many of students come from, and the school. We hope this will encourage more students to walk/cycle to school thus affecting traffic in the area,” Mark Ford, Principal, Dubai British School told Emirates 24|7.

“I’m very glad they put up a traffic light on the road. There was a bad accident which left many parents scared,” said Sophie, a mother of two kids in DBS.

Very close to DBS is Emirates International School (EIS) in Meadows, where residents complain of very slow moving traffic in the mornings.

“Spaces in the car parking are limited and many parents park their car on the road to drop their children. This really slowsdown the traffic and we just have a two-way lane in each direction,” complains a resident of Springs 3. Nobody was available for comment in EIS.

On the other side of the Emirates Hills area is Regent school, where traffic was a major problem some time back. “The entire road up to The Greens was dug up and parents would park their car anywhere. I had to park my car very close to The Lakes entrance to drop my son. It was a mess in the morning. It’s much better now with all the road extension work done but motorist still need to slowdown as kids have to be walked to the school. I’m happy there’s a by lane so we can avoid the main road,” said a German national, who’s child studies in the primary section of the school.

[Image via Shutterstock]

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