By Mariam M. Al Serkal, Senior Web Reporter www.gulfnews.com
Dubai: Walking around the city will become a breeze sooner than you think as Dubai begins to implement its plans of becoming a “compact city”.
City planners say the aim is for Dubai to rank high on the world’s walkability and liveability index in four years’ time.
Speaking to Gulf News on Wednesday, Najib Mohammad Saleh from the planning department at Dubai Municipality, said that Dubai’s Master Plan for 2020 will revamp the current structure of the city to reach that goal.
The promote sustainability and achieve maximum benefits from existing infrastructure, the compact city approach means that all future projects up until 2020 will be concentrated near Mohammad Bin Zayed (MBZ) Road (the former Emirates Road).
Development plan
“We are carrying out both strategic and detailed measures to reduce auto dependency and alleviate traffic volume. On the strategic level, Dubai 2020’s master plan promotes a transit-oriented development policy aimed at concentrating business and population around Dubai metro stations to increase ridership,” he said.
The compact city approach adopted by the municipality will also help reduce the people’s trip lengths, as well as minimising the effects of heavy traffic and pollution.
To ensure that the plan goes according to schedule, the municipality has already informed real estate developers to present a Traffic Impact Study (TIS) as a mandatory component in their application when submitting projects for approval. More info
