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Delay in Dubai-Fujairah Highway Work

FUJAIRAH - The deadline for the completion of the new Dh1.2 billion motorway linking Dubai and Fujairah has been pushed to 2011 instead of the end of 2010 set earlier due to the technical problems involved in construction in the mountainous region.

The speed limit on this road will be 120km/h rather than 90km/h. The delay in opening the expressway at the end of this year also is attributed to setting up some five flyovers in each direction.

The Dubai-Fujairah motorway forms an artery of a rapid connection among the northern emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi on one hand and the eastern coast cities on the other.

It is being carried out as a two direction expressway with three lanes each. The new motorway starts from Sharjah-Kalba in Maleha and ends in the Al Nujaimat locality at the Fujairah entry point.

This project is deemed one of the vital projects with which the federal road networks are going to be expanded.

“This road will be a mode of quick link among the eastern coast and the other parts of the country since it penetrates uneven mountainous area where valleys are common,” said Abdullah Al Nueimi, director general of the Ministry of Public Works.

Nueimi said the opening of the motorway will not be in 2010 as it was announced before owing to the hard technical problems being encountered especially at the mountainous areas through which the new highway is passing.

He pointed out that the rocky road is nearly five kilometres long lying amidst tremendously high mountains.

The new pike will not be opened before 2011, Nueimi, an engineer, said.

The road is being executed in three phases. The first and second phase will be accomplished at the end of this year because both phases are carried out on level smooth lands which are not passing through mountains.

A total of 80 per cent out of the construction works of the first and second phases have been completed, he added.

This is one of the most complicated projects that the Ministry of Public Works has undertaken since the highway is passing through hard mountainous chains, he pointed out.

He said the costs could up further due to the technical nature of the work.

Presently the trip takes an hour and a half on the Fujairah-Al Dhaid-Sharjah-Dubai route.

Once the ministry concludes the first and second phases, it will embark on the third phase which is described as the most complicated.

salah@khaleejtimes.com