Al Ras, Al Ghubaiba stations blend heritage

Saturday, Sep 10, 2011

Gulf News

Dubai While most of the stations of the Dubai Metro have been built on the theme of water, air, earth and fire with specific colours, two stations on the Green Line are unique as they feature typical UAE traditional heritage architectural designs.

They are Al Ras Station and Al Ghubaiba Station. Al Ras Station is located on the Deira side of Dubai surrounded by the old city and souqs while Al Ghubaiba Station is close to the heritage areas of in Al Shindagha on Bur Dubai side of Dubai.

These stations were built depicting heritage of the UAE following the instructions of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The gist of the design concept revolves around employing the architectural traditional elements used in old buildings of the UAE. They have wind towers (brajeel), oriels (mashrabia), alleyways (sukaik), internal arches and others elements which are replicated in an enhanced manner. The heritage-inspired stations look like natural expansion of the traditional souqs in the locality, the Heritage and Diving Village, and the antique control towers dotting the locality.

The entrances of the station at the ground level have been designed to match the traditional architectural setting of the area and integrate with the design of the Dubai Creek Shores Development Project, which has the same theme.

The two stations serve heavily populated areas, trading outlets and banks visited by plenty of visitors.

1.8m

passengers used Metro in October 2009

passengers used Metro in Aug 2011

950,000

passengers currently use all modes of public transport daily

180,000

of the passengers use Metro daily

Dh35.7b

estimated savings in terms of time and fuel due to RTA’s transport and road infrastructure projects since 2005

Dh60b

RTA spending on  transport and  infrastructure projects from November 2005 to June 2011