09-09-09 is really an exceptional date, what a great day also to start the Metro in Dubai.
I was very excited about the idea; it is a great thing to be able to move without your car freely in Dubai.
I came 10-09-2009 before Ramadan's Iftar around 5:45 PM to Al-Rashidiya station, it looked like a space station, this station can handle up to 5000 cars, the entrance was having 2 cars in front of me which was very nice, but instantly it came to my mind that they did forget a huge thing, how can 5000 cars enter the parking through single passage entrance!!!
I did find a nice parking space at the second floor; the parking is designed in a smart way, having the entrance at one side and the exit through the far side which will solve the internal traffic inside the parking.
Just entered the station and found very nice passages, it almost looked like Dubai airport, and not any part of the Airport, it looked like the new Terminal 3, the finishing were really Dubai's standards, after entering the entrance I found Starbucks cafe on my left hand side, very nice entrance and very nice initial feeling about the place.
Then I came down through the escalator, I found a crowd of almost 200 people totally lost; there were 3 lines of people queuing around to do something, every one looked lost. I looked around for any sign that might describe what to do, but nothing was their unfortunately. The Information desk was having the longest queue, there were some helpers from the Metro staff (2 staff), they were trying to help as much as they can, the situation looked really bad, but then this is the first day so what can you expect, one more thing was that the Ticket machines were all out of order!!
After asking the lady who was trying to help, I understood from her that there are 3 kinds of tickets: Golden, silver and Regular, so I though let me buy the silver ticket to see the middle class, so I did, it costs around 20 AED, 6 out of them were deducted instantly as the cost of the card itself, so I was left with 14 AED as credit, later on I discovered that the silver was the regular :(
I grabbed the nice looking silver card from the counter, poor lady she was totally covered with people who are totally lost and seeking help, any way she tried to do her best.
The entrance gates to the Metro itself were confusing; the people who were trying to help looked even more confused. just put my card on the machine and I read on it 14 AED, that meant I was logged in to the metro and that it did log on the card that I entered through Al-Rashidiya gate, so it will start counting from here and when I logout from some other place it will calculate the total distance and charge me accordingly.
Then we went again up to the Metro itself, we waited for around 4 minutes, the waiting place was nice but it is a narrow passage which seemed crowded with almost 50 people, I doubt it will be enough to handle more than a 100. One very nice thing about the Dubai metro is that the physical metro itself is separated by a glass door and moving doors, so no one can by mistake fill in the passage of the metro, I saw the UK underground 10 years ago and it was not like this.
The great part now begins, we entered the Metro itself, there were some chairs to set on, but when it started to move I found out that the best is to be standing. I never felt such an experience, to be flying above Dubai and see all the same views we used to see from the ground, the turnings, the declines and the inclines were totally smooth and amazingly enjoyable.
It took around 7 minutes to reach Deira City Center, my original plan was to go Emirates Mall, but since the Metro made it easy to move around, I just changed my mind, the Metro changed how we make our decisions, no more worries about traffic jams or crowded car parking!! Just change your mind and go to where ever you want to go!!
We went out in the Deira City Center station, again all the stations were really amazing; There was the lack of knowledge of the people not knowing where to go or what to do!
Another 5 minutes of confusion, no guidance from posters, we found one exit which led us to the other side of the road of Deira City Center! We had to go down again to the station to follow another path that led us to the outside entrance of the mall, I always thought the station will be inside the mall and not in the external entrance, any ways we reached our goal.
In order for people to fully use the Metro, they will have to use the bus as will; it is a complete solution which does not work alone.
All in all the experience was really nice and I would suggest everyone to come and try it out.
I was very excited about the idea; it is a great thing to be able to move without your car freely in Dubai.
I came 10-09-2009 before Ramadan's Iftar around 5:45 PM to Al-Rashidiya station, it looked like a space station, this station can handle up to 5000 cars, the entrance was having 2 cars in front of me which was very nice, but instantly it came to my mind that they did forget a huge thing, how can 5000 cars enter the parking through single passage entrance!!!
I did find a nice parking space at the second floor; the parking is designed in a smart way, having the entrance at one side and the exit through the far side which will solve the internal traffic inside the parking.
Just entered the station and found very nice passages, it almost looked like Dubai airport, and not any part of the Airport, it looked like the new Terminal 3, the finishing were really Dubai's standards, after entering the entrance I found Starbucks cafe on my left hand side, very nice entrance and very nice initial feeling about the place.
Then I came down through the escalator, I found a crowd of almost 200 people totally lost; there were 3 lines of people queuing around to do something, every one looked lost. I looked around for any sign that might describe what to do, but nothing was their unfortunately. The Information desk was having the longest queue, there were some helpers from the Metro staff (2 staff), they were trying to help as much as they can, the situation looked really bad, but then this is the first day so what can you expect, one more thing was that the Ticket machines were all out of order!!
After asking the lady who was trying to help, I understood from her that there are 3 kinds of tickets: Golden, silver and Regular, so I though let me buy the silver ticket to see the middle class, so I did, it costs around 20 AED, 6 out of them were deducted instantly as the cost of the card itself, so I was left with 14 AED as credit, later on I discovered that the silver was the regular :(
I grabbed the nice looking silver card from the counter, poor lady she was totally covered with people who are totally lost and seeking help, any way she tried to do her best.
The entrance gates to the Metro itself were confusing; the people who were trying to help looked even more confused. just put my card on the machine and I read on it 14 AED, that meant I was logged in to the metro and that it did log on the card that I entered through Al-Rashidiya gate, so it will start counting from here and when I logout from some other place it will calculate the total distance and charge me accordingly.
Then we went again up to the Metro itself, we waited for around 4 minutes, the waiting place was nice but it is a narrow passage which seemed crowded with almost 50 people, I doubt it will be enough to handle more than a 100. One very nice thing about the Dubai metro is that the physical metro itself is separated by a glass door and moving doors, so no one can by mistake fill in the passage of the metro, I saw the UK underground 10 years ago and it was not like this.
The great part now begins, we entered the Metro itself, there were some chairs to set on, but when it started to move I found out that the best is to be standing. I never felt such an experience, to be flying above Dubai and see all the same views we used to see from the ground, the turnings, the declines and the inclines were totally smooth and amazingly enjoyable.
It took around 7 minutes to reach Deira City Center, my original plan was to go Emirates Mall, but since the Metro made it easy to move around, I just changed my mind, the Metro changed how we make our decisions, no more worries about traffic jams or crowded car parking!! Just change your mind and go to where ever you want to go!!
We went out in the Deira City Center station, again all the stations were really amazing; There was the lack of knowledge of the people not knowing where to go or what to do!
Another 5 minutes of confusion, no guidance from posters, we found one exit which led us to the other side of the road of Deira City Center! We had to go down again to the station to follow another path that led us to the outside entrance of the mall, I always thought the station will be inside the mall and not in the external entrance, any ways we reached our goal.
In order for people to fully use the Metro, they will have to use the bus as will; it is a complete solution which does not work alone.
All in all the experience was really nice and I would suggest everyone to come and try it out.
At the begining all projects have problems, lets wait and see
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