Doha: To help mobilise the Gulf region’s plans for infrastructural advancement, a second series of lectures at the fifth annual ‘Bridges Middle East’ summit took place yesterday. Held at the Ritz-Carlton in Doha, specialists from the region presented case studies examining complexities of specific transportation networks in countries neighbouring Qatar.
Dr Maher Abouseif, former adviser to the Minister of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Urban Planning in Bahrain, opened the conference with his proposal for improving the country’s infrastructure.
Titled ‘Connecting Bahrain with the GCC infrastructure network,’ the presentation described the Qatar Bahrain Causeway project that intends to build a causeway bridge between Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The idea is currently in its planning stage but, if implemented, is hoped to provide more accessibility for residential and industrial growth in Bahrain’s northern areas, many of which are difficult to drive to through the country’s existing road network.
“We need to think about the amount of people and traffic for this project, for example we could expect more than 10,000 cars coming out of Diyar Al Muharraq, an extremely small 32sqm space of land currently under development in northern Bahrain. There has been no proper expansion of road systems that can serve this area and link it up to the causeway, issues like this must be examined before submitting this proposal to Bahrain authorities,” explained Dr Maher.
“And without expansion in these areas we will not be able to accommodate the population, which will double in 15 years’ time, if it continues to grow as it is now at five percent yearly. I hope this project is seriously considered for implementation.”
the peninsula
