We’re rolling

We’re rolling

We’re excited about the new railway.

March 23, 2009 1:13 by Dana El Baltaji

It was reported on Sunday by WAM that the UAE passed a federal bill to form the Union Railway Company, an inter-nation system that links all the emirates. Unfortunately, Kipp was too busy staring at photos of the newly released Nano – Tata’s new ‘car’ – to write report on the issue earlier.

First of all, it’s about time that the emirates finally decided to work on a railway. The UAE government should’ve passed that bill years ago, before traffic became a problem and businesses lost billions of dirhams due to the nation’s congested roads. According to Gulf News, traffic congestion costs Dubai alone AED4.5 billion annually.

But wait, why did it take the nation so long to pass the bill? Doesn’t it seem a little odd that as the rest of the nation watched Dubai’s metro progress from an idea to a soon-to-be-completed reality, other emirates didn’t think ‘what about us?’

It isn’t as though money or space is a problem. Financial crisis or not, the UAE is loaded. And as for space, it wouldn’t be like Dubai’s metro, which is being built predominantly in congested areas. The UAE railway would be built in the desert.

And one more thing: when the railway is complete, what do we do if we want to go to Umm Al Quwain to stock up on ‘the good stuff’? Would we get in trouble in Sharjah?

This is exciting.