Dubai: The Airport Road in Dubai will see more detours from the end of this month as expansion work on the busy thoroughfare gathers steam.
Diversions have been in place on the Airport Road since June last year, facilitating road works that will transform the road into a freeway with four flyovers and an underpass.
The new diversions will be in place at Marrakech and Casablanca intersections, with work on bridges at the intersections of Nad Al Hamar, Marrakech and Casablanca gathering pace.
According to Mattar Al Tayer, director-general and chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), 30 per cent of the work on Rashidiya and Casablanca interchanges have been completed, while the completion rate has reached 25 per cent on the Nad Al Hamar and Marrakech interchanges.
The Dh404-million project is part of a series of infrastructure and mass transit upgrades in Dubai, compatible with the Dubai Strategic Plan 2021.
“The Airport Road Improvement Project is part of a plan set by the RTA for accommodating the projected growth in the number of passengers using the Dubai International Airport which is expected to shoot to 92 million passengers by 2020. Thus, the traffic study highlighted the importance of finalising the improvement of the Airport Road by 2017,” said Al Tayer.
Once completed, the handling capacity of Airport Road will increase by an extra 5,000 vehicles per hour, reducing the journey time on Airport Road between Mohammad Bin Rashid Interchange to Casablanca interchange from 30 minutes to five minutes.
Following the enhancements, the road will see construction of bridges and tunnels at Casablanca Road and Nad Al Hamar Road junctions.
Work also include improving at-grade intersections, and construction of a service road of three lanes in each direction to separate the traffic movement from and to Nad Al Hamar from the vehicular flow on Airport Road starting from Al Rashidiya Interchange up to Marrakech Interchange.
At Al Rashidiya Interchange, a six-lane flyover will be constructed, which is expected to reduce the waiting time at the interchange from 13 minutes to less than one minute.
Work on Nad Al Hamar Road Interchange will include construction of an additional flyover of two lanes in each direction to serve the traffic coming from Nad Al Hamar Road heading towards Airport Road.
The project will ease the current snarls resulting from the overlapping traffic at Nad Al Hamar Interchange between the first ramp heading to the left from Nad Al Hamar Road to Airport Road, and the second ramp heading left from Airport Road to Nad Al Hamar Road.
The Casablanca Interchange upgrade includes the construction of an additional single-lane bridge to serve the traffic from Airport Road in the direction of Casablanca Road without waiting at the traffic signal.
It also includes the construction of an alternative road for traffic coming from Al Garhoud enabling vehicles direct access to Terminal 1 and 3 of Dubai International Airport, besides increasing the number of lanes of Casablanca Road from three to four lanes.
“The project will also reduce the total waiting time at Casablanca Street from three minutes to one minute, and ease tailbacks generated by the overlapping movement of vehicles heading towards Casablanca Interchange and those coming from Terminal 1 heading towards Casablanca Street,” added Al Tayer.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
