Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Ministry working on easing West Bay Towers Area traffic flow

DOHA: The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning is working on a project to redesign the Towers Area in West Bay to ease the traffic congestion and provide more facilities and services, the Advisory Council was told on Monday.

Responding to calls by the Council to address the infrastructural bottlenecks in the city, especially in the West Bay and the Industrial Area, a senior official of the Ministry said a project was already underway to redesign the Towers Area.

Ali Al Abdullah, undersecretary at the Ministry addressed a session of the Council on Monday, which discussed various issues related with roads and other infrastructural projects.

The official said the proposed overhaul in the Towers Area would be carried out without affecting the infrastructural projects in the area that have already been completed.

“Initially buildings with more than 16 floors were not permitted in the area but this restriction was lifted in the 1990s, allowing high-rise structures with no maximum limit on the height of the buildings,” said the official.

He said the Ministry had also undertaken a project to expand and upgrade the infrastructural facilities in remote areas of the country to attract more residents to such areas.

The Advisory Council meeting drew attention to the poor condition of roads and streets in the Industrial Area and called for immediate action to address the issue.The Council also called for more flyovers to ease the traffic on major highways and to establish tunnels and bridges for pedestrians and special lanes for heavy vehicles.

It also proposed to provide ambulance and emergency services across major highways and set up branches of various government departments in all important localities.

A senior official of he Public Works Authority (Ashghal) told the meeting that about 30 infrastructural projects were in different phases of implementation and it would take five to seven years to complete these projects. A project to renovate the Industrial Area is also underway.

ST - And when they went on a building spree the urban planning commission did not realize that all these buildings need parking??? I just cant understand the foolishness of the governance personnel involved in these projects…Even the most foolish would not have made these mistakes and then continue to make them by building more and more high rises in a small cluster (i am guessing to create an impressive skyline and some pseudo new york feel), relocating government offices to these clusters and not building roads or parking…

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