The shell sculpture at the Shell Roundabout (also known as Pearl Roundabout) in Al Wakra is set to be shifted to Al Wakra Souq soon as the roundabout will be converted into an intersection in 2019.
“The company responsible to develop road project starting from Pearl Roundabout to Ooredoo Roundabout and Wadi Afja Roundabout in Al Jabal area will start work soon. All these roundabouts will be converted to signal-controlled intersections and one more lane will be added to the existing two-lane road,” said Mansour bin Ahmed bin Yousef Al Khater, Council Member of Al Wakra.
Regarding about project’s expected completion date, he told The Peninsula that it was expected to be completed within six months.
Ashghal on its official Twitter account announced yesterday: “The Pearl Roundabout on Al Wakra road will be moved to a convenient location to convert the roundabout into an intersection in 2019 in coordination with the Special Engineering Office.”
Some people started a hashtag which was trending on Twitter, sharing memories and saying goodbye to the historic roundabout. One Twitter user asked Ashghal to move it to the Al Wakra beach. But all people welcomed the road project as according to their opinion it would ease traffic on the busy road. “Pearl Roundabout is one of Al Wakra landmarks, and I hope it will not be demolished,” Rashed al Hamli tweeted.
Hassan Al Saai, a popular media person tweeted: “Goodbye the Pearl Roundabout”.
Another one wondered in a lighter vein saying, “If you remove the Pearl Roundabout how would we come to know that we have reached Al Wakra.”
Mansour bin Ahmed bin Yousef Al Khater responded to these tweets saying, “A lot of infrastructure projects are going on in Al Wakra including one of the stadiums which will host 2022 FIFA World Cup. All these mentioned roundabouts will be converted into intersections and the roads will be three lane instead of two. People have to understand these developments.”
“We are keen not to demolish (Pearl Roundabout) as the shell will be shifted to Al Wakra Souq and we know that people have memories with it but (at the same time) these infrastructure projects are also important,” said Council Member of Al Wakra.
In recent years, many famous roundabouts have been converted into traffic signals for better traffic management and to remove congestion on the roads. Sports roundabout, parachute roundabout, TV roundabout have all been converted into intersections in the past few years.
