Great!
Your take on tolls?
James Piecowye took over Nightline in October 2006 until it was canceled in June 2018. The cast and crew of Nightline decided to keep the show going and this is where James posts the notes.
James Piecowye took over Nightline in October 2006 until it was canceled in June 2018. The cast and crew of Nightline decided to keep the show going and this is where James posts the notes.
Hi James,
ReplyDeletehow about that guy calling you rude? Some people just get offended
very easily! *big babies*.
Wonder if you'll get any 'hate mail' from him or something. heh. and
I'm wondering how muchresponse you'll get to this subject. it's quite
a hot one. and I gotta weigh in more than what i've just said in the
text.
there are advantages to driving yourself and taking public
transport...if you're driving yourself you can't really do much else
other than listen to the radio or an audio book. if you're taking the
public transport, you can actually read a book or manage to get some
kind of work done. I used to write a lot on the bus when i was taking
the bus to UOWD before i got my license back and got a car. ( a nice
li'll xA by the way. very efficient 'little' thing. :D ) but those
where the 'college days' so to speak. I'm way past that now. then i
could afford to 'waste time' by sitting in traffic jams and not doing
much, because alll i had to worry about was getting to class and
studying. now there's a lot more on my plate, and i can't afford to
sit in traffic most of the day.
I'm wondering...they (RTA) are suggesting (i.e. forcing) we use
public transport as an alternative...okay, and nevermind that there is
not much of that out here just yet...but i just tossed the numbers in
my head for a bit. we spend something like half our lives stuck in
traffic or something. i think if you sleep an average of 8 hours a
day, by the time you're 30 you've slept for the majority of those
years...factor in bathroom time, stuck in traffic time, waiting for
Etisalat to answer your calls time, waiting for your doctor to get to
you, and so on, you've only been alive for about two weeks there... i
think i went off on a tangent there, oops..
I live in Sharjah, not far from the sharjah airport so i get to take
the emirates road as it's closer. if I'm coming from Sharjah to Dubai
( taking the emirates road to Knowledge Village/Dubai Media City,
using the SALIK toll gate on Shekh Zayed road coming to DMC) on a
'good' day it takes 3 hours out of my day just to go to SAE and work
(thankfully I work in DMC so it's close by KV) and go back home. On a
bad day that journey is about 4-5 hours. (If I leave at 6 or 7 pm,
I'll still be on the road at 9 pm regardless of the extra lanes on
emirates road at one point; they all still lead to a bottle neck of 3
lanes with one lane completely taken up by the huge trucks and heavy
machinery leading up to National Paints bridge, which seems to be a
nightmare at most times of the day or night.) okay 4 - 5 hours...
that's given good weather conditions and no traffic accidents, if t
here is a traffic accident, of course everyone has to stop and look
and get out of the car and take pictures (I kid you not, I've seen
that one done!) which of course holds up the traffic and there are
even more delays. and lets not forget that most roads in the Emirates
are not ready for the kind of rain 'events' that we get here. if its
raining its usually a disaster on the roads.
and the RTA wants us to take public transport...? hang on a second
there...do the RTA know how many hours there are in a day? given how
often the buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers, the traffic,
and so on....we're talking about spending close to half a day just
traveling around, and that's discounting if you have to go somewhere
for a meeting. you're pretty much doomed if you have to go to a
meeting that's not in your building or close by. and seriously, I've
been on the bus from time to time (going through Jumeirah mostly);
never have i seen a business man traveling on a public bus. tourists.
workmen and women (construction workers, cleaners, maids, and
basically the people who earn peanuts given the prices of everything
here). students, and so on.......but not a single guy in a business
suit. (and nevermind the leers the ladies get from the majority of
the male passengers on the bus the minute a woman walks onto a bus)
adding more SALIK gates, won't force people to take a bus or train or
go cart or what ever else the RTA has in mind (let us see it first,
then put SALIK in! but i guess they need the money to built all this
stuff so ...yeah. hmm)
Ease congestion...uh...yeah...still takes me the same amount of time,
if not more sometimes, to travel back and forth, except now i also
have to pay the Salik charge regardless at what time i go through the
toll gates...Salik means clear...clear what? they kinda didn't finish
the sentence there.
maybe this is why they're also not looking at putting in more parking
spaces. they want to force people to use public transport. i get to
DMC, and if i come later than 9 am, i cant park anywhere by the
building or close by, i have to park under the bridge amongst all the
construction work going on there (and that's not too safe either, but
what choice do people have? public transport? ok fine, if it actually
stopped anywhere NEAR the building i work at, as opposed to a good K
or 2KM walk. now yeah, everywhere's walking distance if you got the
time, but what if you're carrying equipment with you? such as a lap
top, couple of manuals, presentation materials...they seriously can't
be serious about forcing everyone to use public transport. )
now yeah, the RTA said they're planning on pushing most of the big
trucks and all sorts of things that go between cities with heavy
goods, to go via trains that'll be built by something like 2015 (if
I'm not wrong) that might ease the traffic a bit, but...what do we do
in the mean time? to use a sci-fi reference or two here: teleport or
use a Stargate? (that'd be neat, won't it?) fly? I'm sure the RTA or
the department of civil aviation since we're talking airspace, will
somehow manage to put a toll up there as well. so far it's all just
talk talk talk. and very little action on the RTAs part (aside those
signs on the roads "we're working on it!" "we've done it!" advertising
water taxies, more roads, flying carpets and so on)
Actually...you know, the taxi guys have to make at least 250 dirhams
in 8 hours they drive the cab for. well they've changed that. now it's
one taxi per two drivers in 8 hours, and BOTH of these guys have to
make 250 dirhams in half the time that they forced one guy to make it
in. yeah i can see how the RTA isn't after making more money...and
then there's the whole no carpooling thing...don't get me started on
that! if i'm driving with a friend taking her to my place, should i
drop her off and tell her to catch a cab all the way to Sharjah? its
insane! and its backwards.
i am wondering how the RTA are thinking this all through.. it's
curious really. maybe there's some logic to all of this, it just
doesn't seem like it when you look at it from outside, i guess.