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One of the few lacks Dubai is often criticized for is neglecting pedestrian needs. Indeed, given the customary lifestyle in this “future city” and local population’s welfare, most of the roads were designed primarily for cars and not for pedestrians. But what Dubai authorities could hardly be criticized for is close attention to the city’s current and emerging needs in order to timely eliminate erasing problems.
This time Dubai is taking into consideration the needs of residents and guests of the Palm Jumeirah man-made island. Dubai's authorities, acting through its master developer Nakheel, decided to completely redo the palm island’s infrastructure to make it more pedestrian-friendly, thus helping to free the traffic too.
On the central part of the island’s ‘trunk’ The Palm Promenade is about to be constructed, in addition to the recently opened The Boardwalk. The new promenade stretching for 1.5 kilometers will be a natural extension of the 11-kilometer long The Boardwalk. But, most importantly, the number of pedestrian bridges to be thrown over the Palm Jumeirah’s ‘trunk’ are about to connect nearly 30 residential buildings on the island with important local infrastructure units like Al Ittihad Park with a 3.2km jogging track, landscaped rockery and water features, a Palm West beach high-end beach club facility featuring a shaded park on the western trunk of Palm Jumeirah, as well as with the Golden Mile-Galleria retail center.
Now that Palm Jumeirah is being actively developed, and soon to have many more new large hospitality, retail and residential projects, like The Pointe and Nakheel Mall, traffic pressure at the entry to the island and on the ‘trunk’ has increased, thus Nakheel has to free some movement on and off the Palm, Nakheel’s chairman Ali Rashid Lootah said.
Nakheel will face a number of complex logistical issues to be solved in order to bring its plan to life. To do this, Nakheel “will be creating a mock up of the pedestrian area, a couple of hundred metres long, so residents can see what the benefits of the plan are likely to be. That will be ready by the end of Q1” Lootah has added.
