I'm Not Stuck on the Roundabout

Yes, my friends, it's finally finished! The Ranches roundabout is G..O..N..E! We now have a proper interchange to get out of our neighborhood. For those of you not in Dubai, let me give you a little background. In order to get to our neighborhood from anywhere in Dubai you previously had to travel around the Ranches roundabout. Maybe I need to back up a bit further and explain a roundabout. Houstonians, there are roundabouts in Houston behind the Memorial City Hospital on I10. But, they're little cutesie ones in a residential neighborhood. Sorry, I digress.

A roundabout is a way to navigate crossing roads without a stoplight. It's a giant circle with four (typically) roads sprouting off of it. So, you get onto the roundabout and if you want to turn right, you take the first road sprout. Straight, the second. Left, the third. You get it right?

Now, the Ranches roundabout was a crossing of a major highway and a minor highway. There were three lanes in the roundabout and all kinds of crazy rules about who could turn from which lane. The worst thing about it was the traffic buildup. In order to make the roundabout safer, the RTA installed traffic lights so that you could only get on the roundabout when your light was green. The cycle was FIVE full minutes. I rarely made it through on the first cycle. There are two ways (see DDDD #3) out of the neighborhood. Basically, getting somewhere that was 15 minutes away would take at least 45 because of the freakin roundabout. And, there was no way to know how bad it was going to be. I've sat in the line for 30 minutes before on a Wednesday at 10am.

On a Thursday afternoon a few weeks ago it was announced that the interchange would be open the next morning! I was beyond excited and found something to do Friday morning! It was awesome driving over Emirates Road and not having to stop!

NO more stoplights.
NO more queueing.
NO more endless waiting.

Here are the before pictures...

Approaching the Roundabout from Mall of the Emirates on 63 (Umm Suqueim)

Scaffolding for the flyovers (these pics were taken Nov of last year)

Near the Emirates Road Jebel Ali side
Near the back entrance of the Ranches

And here are the after pictures...

Leaving the Ranches and heading toward Jebel AliOn the overpass that crosses Emirates Road
Umm Suqueim Road that takes you to Mall of the Emirates and the back entrance of the Ranches (the Ranches is back left out of the picture)

This is the way that you get on Emirates Road from Umm Suqueim (63) and head toward Jebel Ali

Taking Emirates Road to Jebel Ali from the back entrance of the Ranches