Dubai: If your drive back home on the Sharjah-bound Al Ittihad Road has been a breeze all this while, but isn’t looking smooth all of a sudden from this week, don’t blame it on bad timing. The Dubai-Sharjah grind is back as expats return from vacations ahead of the schools opening next week.
“The gridlock is back. It’s a painfully familiar sight again after what we thought was a nice little break,” says Pakistani sales executive Danish Manzoor, 32, who leaves his office in Deira every day at 6pm.
For the last couple of months, he would reach his Al Majaz home in Sharjah in 40 minutes or less. From this Sunday on, the start of the week before schools re-open in Dubai and Sharjah, it has taken him an hour extra for his daily drive back home.
“The cars on the road have gone up manifold and I can’t imagine any other reason for this rush hour traffic. The same stretch of road from Al Mamzar toll gate until the end of Al Wahda Street that used to see free flowing traffic until last week, is now completely clogged again in the evenings,” he adds.
However evenings aren’t the only testing times.
“The mornings have become even worse for us Dubai-bound drivers,” says Egyptian Najm Al Haddad,36 who drives up to Jebel Ali and back every day from his home in Al Nahda. “I always exit S102 (Sharjah Ring Road) for Mohammad Bin Zayed road and there has been no problems all this while. However cars have begun piling up again in that small slipway from this Sunday and it’s again taking almost 15-20 minutes to exit, like in the past,” says the cashier at a trading firm.
Most families time their annual vacations when schools across Dubai and Sharjah close for summer. This year, however, the holidays coincided with Eid allowing many more to leave the country for an extended break. As a result, the number of cars on roads, say motorists, were visibly fewer and rush hour traffic almost minimal. From this week though gridlocks and long tailbacks have returned.
“With schools re-opening from the first week of September, the holidaymakers are back in the country and so are traffic jams,” says Indian PR executive Jennifer Fernandes, 27.
“The traffic situation on Al Ittihad Road is so bad these days that sometimes I stay back at work until 8pm. I use those hours browsing the net rather than getting frustrated behind the wheel,” says Fernandez, who drives to her office on Oud Metha Road daily from her home in Al Khan, Sharjah.
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