Shrub* Comes to Town

Today, without any warning or explanation, the Dubai Road Authority has closed or blockade access routes onto and off of the most traveled road in the city. This is not a new thing for them. Every once in a while, they take it upon themselves to barricade a road or exit. Nothing like posting a flash-board stating, "Starting Dec 19, this exit will be closed." Nope, no such thing like that happens here. A couple months ago, they blocked every exit on a road leading through the city and forced every commuter to drive to the neighboring emirate (Sharjah) before they could turn around and find their way back home. For you Milwaukeeans, it would be sort of like getting on I-94 to head to Racine, only to have all exits blocked until you got to Illinois to turn around and come back. Someone posted in the letters section of the newspaper that when they called to complain the operator said, "What's wrong with Sharjah? Sharjah's nice."

Every decade or so, a city has a day where some event (snow, traffic pile up, Presidential convoy) ties up the traffic to a point where the stories reach mythical proportions. The tales will be retold as urban legend for years to come. In Dubai, today's closing of roads and routes through the city will be added to the tales of traffic horror that are continually retold in this city. Creating a driving space for Shrub's convoy has traffic looking like the dog's breakfast. To add to the chaos, it is raining. Oooh, traffic is a horrible mess.

I'm looking out my window at traffic on the main artery through town, Sheikh Zayed Road. Traffic has been at a near standstill since 7:30 this morning. Years from now, whenever someone has a particularly bad day in traffic, anyone who was caught in this mess will pipe in, "I remember the day Shrub came to town, I was at the World Trade center, just 1/2 kilometer from work, and 2 hours later I finally got into the parking lot."

Two guys from our office were communting in together. After being already 1 1/2 hours late, one of them had his bladder calling - a call he could no longer ignore. They were about 1 mile from the office. He agreed with his ride mate that he'd get out to walk and find a building with a public restroom he could use. About 45 minutes later, he finally walked into the office - but his ride mate was still stuck in traffic and didn't get in for another 45 minutes.

Another guy fought through stop and go traffic for hours to make his way to the main intersection about 1/2 mile from our office. When he tried to exit for the office, the traffic police were blocking his way (too much of a log jam on the road and they weren't letting any more cars through). So, he was diverted onto another road and after traveling about 1 mile on that road the only direction he was allowed to turn (again by the traffic police) was in the direction right back to his house. So, after 4 hours, he was back home.

Actually, Bush's visit to Dubai isn't until tomorrow. So, we have all this fun to look forward to again tomorrow.

Updated: Since my original post, the city has actually declared that Monday will be a holiday. There are so many roads, bridges, and tunnels that will be closed - even more than today, that they feared the congestion would be too bad. Not even in his own country does a visit from Shrub warrant a holiday.

*Shrub was the name given to George W. Bush by Molly Ivins. Ever since, the nickname has stuck with me. I miss Molly Ivins. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Ivins)