| Kippreport.com

UAE resident’s won’t walk

August 2, 2010 4:11 by kippreport

A press release just hit Kipp’s desk announcing that just 4 percent of UAE residents walk on a weekly basis, compared to 40 percent of people in the UK.

Kipp is amazed. You mean to say 4 percent of UAE residents walk every week? That is far higher than we ever would have guessed.

The sad fact is that walking here is not part of life. In Dubai, in particular, Kipp would be very surprised if as many as 4 percent of residents walked. It is a very difficult thing to do in the city, for all the obvious reasons: the heat, the traffic, the pollution, and the lack of places to walk are only the first that spring to mind.

The press release in question is all PR fluff, from a company that manufactures “functional shoes.” But it did provide Kipp with a small chuckle. “Despite world-class pedestrian-friendly atmosphere, culture of walking still missing in UAE,” it says. “The walking infrastructure in the UAE is well advanced compared to most countries in the world.”

Is it? Can anyone tell Kipp where we can find this pedestrian-friendly atmosphere? Presumably it is somewhere away from the deadly drivers, sidewalks blocked by scaffold, noise, dust, and searing heat. And we’d love to find this “walking infrastructure.” Maybe they mean the track around Safa Park?

It doesn’t matter. Even if the atmosphere and infrastructure existed outside of the release author’s imagination, guess what: We still wouldn’t walk. Because fuel is cheap; because things are far away… but most of all, because we are lazy.

Welcome to Dubai – you’re probably better selling those functional shoes somewhere else.

Tags: dubai residents don’t walk, pedestrians dubai, uae residents don’t walk, uae walking, walking in dubai, walking in the uae