Last week a press statement said that Dubai’s 350 state of the art air-conditioned bus shelters were now available for public use but this is not the full story.The statement entitled ‘Dubai opens 350 AC Bus Shelters’ should be reading ‘Dubai opens 350 degree Bus Shelters’.
For instance passengers waiting over the weekend along some unshaded roads would have fried like chicken if they had attempted to enter the new shelters. Instead they were angrily waiting for their buses outside the shelters in the humid 43+degree heat.
Dubai residents were informed by the Chief Executive of the city's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in May 2006 that by the following summer they would be living in “the first city in the world to offer the luxury of air-conditioned bus shelters for passengers.”
The shelters are way behind timetable for their completion date. If there are some shelters where the AC is flowing the press statements about the opening of the shelters are quite misleading and do not tell the whole sweaty story.
Dr Geoff Pound
Image: One of the new bus shelters on Al Khawaneej Road that is not functioning.
