Dubai - First Gulf metro system
The Dubai Metro will eventually become the world's longest driverless train system with more than 70km (43 miles) of track.
It cost almost twice the original estimate and opens at a time when Dubai is suffering from economic troubles due to the global recession.
Many residents believe the metro is a positive social and environmental addition in a city which wants to be recognised for modern thinking.
C'mmon Qatar..!
In India we have Metro Rail in two cities
Calcutta & Delhi.
The Calcutta Metro rail is fully underground.
sorry for the typos and grammatical errors. just getting used to writing in English again...
In essence you are just repeating the defeatist speech echoed by most Arabs, intellectual or not, without true knowledge of occidental history. Although I agree with your assessment regarding Arab societies having turned into “consumer” constructs, the basic idea usually lurking behind such evaluation is based not on history but on abstract notions of race and nationality.
A fine example is Germany, which most Arabs admire for all the wrong (and less for the right reasons). This country is only about 150 years old, created through a conniving and at times backhanded politics of Bismarck, his intention was not to create a social welfare state or the advancement of his people, but to maintain power and force the labor class into near servitude.
We Arabs tend to forget that modern Europe was not created through some bizarre genetic code but through wars, blood and slavery. Something most Europeans will easily ignore or laugh at.
Another point regarding the importing of foreign labor is seldom mentioned; Gulf Arabs actually relied heavily on Arab man-/womanpower in their early phase of development. Both professionals and lesser skilled workers from the Al-Sham region and Egypt were welcomed into the region up to the point where pan-Arab socialism was gaining in popularity both among expatriate and local Arab alike. This, coupled with the assumed abuse of the health-care and education systems, threatened both the status-quo and eventually “Western” interests in the region.
No offense to you, but I am really fed up with the usual Arab narrative of “they are better than us, we amount to nothing”. We are people, we can and do produce talents, we deserve much better than copying failing systems and we can reinterpret modernity (which is strictly a European phenomenon). As for where to start, I am still trying to figure that out.
Yep Brit Driver less .I heard the same too.Wish next week i will check closely,either there is driver or not.
"Drink Beer Save Water"
Did you say driverless ??????????????????????????????
Drsam these are all cycles. Would Europe had advanced without the interference of Arabs?
the citizen of these countries had their own innovative ideas, technologies, man power, know-how, financing, and awarness to do these things more than 150 years ago. very little help from other countries if any. how much would it take any arab country to do it without external help? from the steel manufacturing, to making the machinery that dig the groung, to building the trains...
we are a "societe de consommation" or consuming society. we just pay. others create.
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.
my late grandgrandfather used to tell me how in 1913, he travelled 6 km to the nearest town to see a car! electricity around 1950.
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.
drsam u mind telling us how the middle east was between 1863 and 1908(the oldest and newest metro listed)
in 2009, the year dubai metro starts, these metros would have more than 100 years old
london uk 1863
new york 1 usa 1870
chicago usa 1892
budapest hungary 1896
glascow uk 1896
paris france 1900
boston usa 1901
berlin germany 1902
athen greece 1904
philadelphia usa 1907
new york 2 usa 1908
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.
drac qatar allready started to study abt metro and there is one committe also under govt ..
LOOOOL @ C'mmon Qatar..!
wat's wrong with family day??/
Not even the City Center is "forward/modern thinking" (family days)!
not completely true baldrick,the major stations have massive parking lots attached to them which are free for metro users while non-metro users can use it for an hourly fee,was there last week & drove around town to check out the metro & passed sprawling lots attached to the main stations,their purpose,like in the UK being to attract people to drive to the station,leave their cars there & take the train to & from work...righly mentioned,there are currently no taxi ranks but going by Dubai's record,it will come soon enough,considering pen was put to paper on this metro in '04,5 years later it's a reality,as opposed to this town where there are grand plans but i daresay no chance of actually boarding a train for the next decade at least? if their current record is anything to go by...@ heero_yuy2,look at it this way mate,if there was one city in the GCC that was to be recognized for forward/modern thinking,honestly,who would your vote go to?...
Qatar is just imitating Dubai....I wish to visit Dubai someday...(dreaming mode..)
"...which wants to be recognised for modern thinking"
There! Pretentiousness already mentioned. Nuff sed.
"Everything in this book may be wrong." Illusions: The Adventures of The Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
"Many residents believe the metro is a positive social and environmental addition in a city which wants to be recognised for modern thinking"
But according to my mate who works there, nobody wants to use it!
The stations have no adequate parking nearby, there are no taxi ranks near them either, so you get off and either stand around for hours in the hope of find a cab, or you have to walk for miles. Great plan Dubai!
enjoy ur century
lol..back in my cave,then!
see ya after 100 years :)
drac u'll be the only alive ql member when qatar has it's own metro system
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8245408.stm