Salam Street tunnel finally open!

Well, it's been a long time coming, but it's finally open. Work on the tunnel started in 2008 and I never actually thought we would still be here when it opened, but here we are - still here! The full story from the paper on the opening is below.....


http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/salam-street-tunnel-renamed-and-now-open-to-the-public


Also below are some links to previous posts of mine relating to Salam Street, some about the tunnel project, including a couple of video clips.


http://neilandcaz.blogspot.com/search/label/Salam%20Street


We lived amongst the noise of this project for about 18 months and was one of the reasons for moving out of the city 2 years ago. The picture below shows the two flats we had, when we moved from one to the other, from Mina Road, to Salam Street - both right on the tunnel project construction.

You can clearly see the construction going on - it was a source of noise, congestion and frustration for a long time! The traffic in the city got very congested as people had to find other routes in and out and roads were diverted.

The picture below shows the location of our second flat with one section of the now completed tunnel.

Silvia Razgova/The National

The traffic is much better and it does provide a really good link into and out of the centre of the city. It is quite a feat of engineering and is a great addition to the transport network.

Reem Island / Maryah Island

I just thought I would take some photos to show how things are developing on these islands. Some are below, but there is also a full album linked below.


The towers of Abu Dhabi Investment Council and Al Hilal Bank. This was taken from Al Salam Street, Eastern Corniche.

The bridge across to Reem Island from Defense Road (11th Street)

Marina Square, Reem Island

Shams Abu Dhabi, including Sky And Sun Towers and the Gate Towers - which remind me of Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore

The Paris Sorbonne University on Reem Island

The long awaited Salam Street tunnel!

This is Al Maryah Island (formally Al Sowwah Island - I don't think its sounds too good when you are pitching to global businesses! - it's pronounced Soo-wah). I thought I would label it so you can see what's what. There is also a video clip below from the same spot.

The clip pans from ADFC across to The Beach Rotana, Abu Dhabi Mall and Le Meridien Hotel beach.

...and here is the full photo album (sorry I should have exported larger files)

Around Abu Dhabi City

Salam Street "ready by early 2012"

I love this sentence...

“What is perceived as delay in the project is in fact sequencing the delivery of the project phases to best fit the operational needs of the downtown infrastructure."

So, not a delay then? .... some doublespeak here I feel ! 


There is an error in the report though, saying that the work started in October 2007. It was definitely October 2008, because everything was untouched when we arrived.


Still - it is quite an engineering feat, and it will be great once it is open.

From today's The National.....

Utilities networks underground hold up Dh5 billion project

ABU DHABI // The Dh5 billion Salam Street reconstruction project will be completed early next year, according to the latest update by municipality officials.

The work, which includes a 3.1 kilometre tunnel between Mina Road and Al Falah Street, has been hampered by “dense underground utilities networks, as well as a large volume of vehicular traffic on a daily basis”.

The project to expand the road to more than double its original capacity began in October 2007 and was expected to take three years. Officials said in March it would be finished last month. The expected completion date is now the first quarter of 2012, the municipality says.

“What is perceived as delay in the project is in fact sequencing the delivery of the project phases to best fit the operational needs of the downtown infrastructure.

“Further, there have been various upgrades to the project’s scope of works to deliver a vehicular tunnel with advanced operating systems.” When the road is completed there will be no traffic signals between Sheikh Zayed Bridge and Mina Zayed.

Part of the new road has been in use for some time, although two lanes near the junction with 31st Street were temporarily closed to traffic in June.

Motorists said they had seen little progress on that stretch since then. “ There has been no improvement,” said Khalifa Al Hassani, who travels on Salam Street every day.

Inbound traffic is about 7,000 vehicles during morning hours and outbound traffic is about 5,600 vehicles, more than double the usage before construction began. The municipality estimates about 126,000 vehicles will eventually use the road each weekday.

Salam Street, continued on 2 “ The corridor provides four lanes in each direction with an additional capacity of about 8,000 vehicles per hour, per direction,” the official said.

“ This encourages drivers to use the corridor and shifts the traffic away from Muroor Road and Airport Road, which improves traffic operation and reduces congestion.” The final phase, which has most affected residents and local businesses, is from Hazza bin Zayed Street (11th Street, or Defence Road) to Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank on Mina Road.

Despite delays, officials say the project has not run over budget.

The completed urban expressway will have five tunnels and pedestrian walkways over the road.

The municipality said other traffic calming measures would be undertaken as part of infrastructure improvements across the city.

Plans include adding traffic lanes and optimising signal timings.

Additionally, the municipality plans to introduce 12 new junctions with signals “ to improve accessibility, connectivity and traffic circulation”.

Salam Street Roadworks

I walked over Salam Street on Hamdan Street at the weekend. There are signs of an actual road at the surface level now. I think the surface road might be on course for opening in the summer, but I think the tunnel may be delayed further. But even having the surface road is going to make a huge difference I reckon.

Salam Street Tunnel works

I took a few photos today showing the progress of the tunnel works outside our apartment building. Although there has been no official statement declaring that they will not meet the October deadline (about 6 months later than the first date), it is clear that they will not. Maybe by year end? If not early next year I would guess. It will certainly be a major improvement when it is finished and maybe traffic can flow more freely through the whole city as a result. It is also clearly a major feat of engineering which actually looks like it is being done properly - well done Samsung!

The tunnel taking shape.




Looking down towards The Sheraton.



Concrete top slabs being put in place to create the tunnel roof.



A fully covered section.



Looking down between the slabs.

Like living on a construction site!

As well as living right on the Al Salam Street tunnel roadworks project, they are now laying new sewage pipes in our area. Work on the sewage pipes starts about 6am right outside our bedroom window! The tunnel roadworks are 24/7 .... we love it as you can imagine!

....yours for the annual rent of £30k. Great.

Here's the view from our bedroom window......

New Apartment

Well we have finally moved into our new apartment. We are very pleased with it and it is much nicer than the previous one - and cheaper to boot! The staff have been very helpful sorting things out for us. One great thing is that they don’t allow you to put your own pictures etc up on the wall in case you hit an electrical cable or something, so the maintenance men will come and do it for you! Hurrah!

And parking... oh my god , parking - you don’t know how wonderful it is to actually be able to park in my own space... hurrah no.2!

Unfortunately, we are still right on top of the roadworks, although the noise so far doesn’t seem to be too bad.

All in all though, I think we will be happy here.

Here’s some pictures of the place......

Al Mansoori Building Apartment

On the move again!

We have decided to move... again! This will be the 4th home we have lived in within 2 years!

Rental prices have softened in Abu Dhabi somewhat. There are many developments, on and off the main city island, that are now being completed. So, that together with the number of people that have moved to Dubai to take advantage of the massive drops there, has meant that the supply and demand balance has shifted slightly. Last year we paid 200k AED (c.£36k) for the annual rent on our 2 bedroom apartment. At the time this was not a bad price for the area, pretty average. When I discussed the price for the coming year with the building owner (bear in mind that there are about 70 flats in our building and this is probably not the only property he has - how rich must he be?), without any haggling on my part he offered us 150k AED. So that sounded better. Armed with this info I thought we should check out some other buildings around us, still close enough for Caz to walk to work, but that might have that most elusive of treasures in this part of town - a parking space! And guess what - we found one!

The map below shows where we are going......




It is the “Al Mansoori” building, named after the owner and his business, whose offices are also in the tower. It is still a 2 bedroom apartment, but it is bigger, with a full sized “Maid’s room” having it’s own en-suite, rather than the cupboard allocated to maids in our current block (not that we have a maid!), so you could pretty much call it a 3 bedroom. There is a swimming pool on the roof of the building and also a small gym. But the best thing is ... I will have an allocated, numbered, completely dedicated parking space in the underground car park! Yippee!! All-in with fees 174k AED + 4k deposit.

More for less. Bargain.


Roll on April 29th!

Tunnel roadworks

Roadworks outside our apartment block on Mina Road are giving us some noise issues at night at the moment. It's all part of the Salam St tunnel works.

The video shows what the noise is all about... our block is second on the left.

And here is an interactive plan of the full project.....

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090213/PANORAMIC/729919164

Stood up

I guess my customer must have thought the subject of Data Centre design was boring too, as he and he team didn't turn up! Actually this is a regular occurrence here and I'm starting to get used to it. Having confirmed yesterday that the training was still on and also having spoken to him this morning re parking availability, we arrived, sat in reception for about an hour waiting and were then called up to meet the department secretary. She called someone else, he arrived and informed us that they were very sorry but something had come up and the meeting would have to be postponed. Great. As I say, this is nothing unusual around here. My company CEO from the U.S. has been stood up twice by the same customer for organised meetings. Anyway, we did some other calls instead, so wasn't a wasted day.




On the way to one of our calls saw this on Salam Street. Just another day on the roads of Abu Dhabi! How he got there, I have no idea. Another example of the driving skills of the Taliban Taxi Company.