Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is set to open a two-lane tunnel linking the Airport Street and Marrakech Street this Friday.

The tunnel, which is a part of the Improvement of Airport-Marrakech Streets Junction Project, is aimed at providing smooth traffic flow from the Airport Street to Marrakech Street in a densely populated district with several schools as well as public and private entities in the neighbourhood.

"The scope of work includes the construction of two bridges on the Airport Street of three lanes in each direction, and a ramp branching out of a downtown-bound bridge leading to Dubai International Airport Terminal 3, thus bypassing the light signal," explained Nabeel Mohammed Salih, the director of roads at the RTA’s Traffic and Roads Agency.

"It also included the construction of another bridge leading to the premises of the Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects (Ex-Dubai Airshow). The project will cut the waiting time at the junction from seven minutes to less than a minute," he stated.

Salih pointed out that over several phases, the RTA had opened all bridges of the four junctions of the Airport Street.

"The first, Al Rashidiya Junction, included the construction of two bridges of three lanes in each direction on the Airport Street. The second was the Airport-Nad Al Hamar Streets Junction involving the construction of a two-lane ramp to serve the traffic from Nad Al Hamar Street to the Airport Street," he explained.

"The third was the Marrakech-Airport streets’ junction which involved the construction of two bridges of three lanes in each direction along with a ramp leading to Airport Terminal 3 without waiting at the light signal," stated Salih.

"It also included the construction of another bridge leading to the premises of the Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects and a two-lane underpass to serve the traffic heading leftward from the Airport Street in the direction of Marrakech Street," he added.

According to Salih, the fourth junction covered upgrading the Airport-Casablanca streets junction through the construction of an additional single-lane ramp to serve the traffic from the Airport Street heading to Casablanca Street, thus eliminating the waiting time at the light signal.

"It also included the construction of an alternative street for traffic inbound from Al Garhoud, enabling direct access to Terminal 1 and 3 of the Airport, besides increasing the number of lanes of Casablanca Street in the direction of Al Garhoud from three to four lanes," said the senior official.

"The project has considerably reduced the total waiting time at Casablanca junction and eased tailbacks generated by the overlapping traffic between vehicles heading towards Casablanca junction and others coming from Terminal 1 heading leftwards to Casablanca Street," he added.-TradeArabia News Service