Current Situation:
At present you have a huge volume of traffic trying to get out of Discovery Gardens, usually in the morning. The road coming from Discovery Gardens has three lanes and just before the roundabout funnels into one lane. This causes a lot of congestion with all cars trying to get into that one lane before the roundabout, the road (D59) leading to Sheikh Zayed Road is only one lane and slows the volume of traffic right down which has a knock on effect to the already built up traffic trying to get out of Discovery Gardens.
Proposed:
Reduce the road coming from Discovery Gardens from three lanes into two and place barriers along the side of the road to stop other vehicles that have gone off road breaking into the already built up traffic approaching the roundabout. Having the two lanes will give drivers the option to get in the left lane and go straight on or left at the roundabout freeing up the right lane for driver who only intend to go right.
Make the D59 that leads you to Sheikh Zayed Road into a four lane road, two going up to Sheikh Zayed Road and two coming in the opposite direction. Again this will give drivers the option of lanes to be in depending on the direction in which they intend to take at the next roundabout. This will have a knock on effect and ease the congestion right along the route coming out of Discovery Gardens.
Matthew
To clarify, I reckon you are referring to the bit of road past the petrol station close to Ibn Batutta Gate that is an exit point mainly for the Gardens area and Jebel Ali Village.
Not that I have ever done this of course, but as you come from the Gardens / Discovery Gardens with the petrol station on your left and the “Gate” on your right – instead of turning left into the congestion at the traffic signal, you could go straight ahead, follow the road around the bend at the back of the Ibn Batutta Gate hotel then take a left across the rough ground under the Metro Viaduct and join SZR there. If you are coming from Abu Dhabi, I often see drivers reversing the process to avoid the long wait on the up ramp up to the first of the roundabouts towards the petrol station.
I think the engineering of the brige over SZR from the DEWA / Oasis plants means that we are unlikely to see any road widening anytime soon if ever. It would be better to build a small official slip road in the place I refer to above to ease the burden on the junction you mention. It is clear from the painted out roadsign just before the petrol station, that that was once part of the original road from Jebel Ali to Dubai.
Danny,
You are correct, it is that area you’re talking about. I know the area under the viaduct but I have seen the Police stopping vehicles that use that shortcut as they join SZR at the back of the metro where there is also a slip road for the Ibn Battuta Mall.
You’re also right in saying that they will not widen the bridge, it’s crazy as the volume of traffic coming in and out of the Gardens is huge. I’m not particularly affected by it as I leave very early in the morning to Abu Dhabi but I know my wife gets caught up in it. At the moment the Mosque has been knocked down and is not being used for Friday prayers but when it is in use Friday is a no go area for at least an hour due to the vehicles parked in and around the roundabout.
Gents
That roundabout is ridiculously small – built many years ago when there were far less people living in the area. How hard would it be to make the roundabout into two lanes and add on each side of the ramp going up to the bridge? That way we could have two lanes of traffic heading up and down in each direction. So we cannot widen the bridge but at least traffic over could flow without really having to deal with the vehicles coming from AD, just force that flow into one lane and the traffic from Dubai can have the second lane. Another logical alternative would be to construct a tunnel (as not to disrupt traffic flow) under SZR to the Dubai side of the Ibn gate hotel so we have a third ingress into the Gardens.