The roads management situation has been a dud for years.
A real planning letdown; lots of work on new developments for housing and not enough focus on roads and parking, for a burgeoning populace.
Combine that with intemperate and inconsistent policing, Bahrain’s hedonistic “me first” motorist philosophy and a hell bent belief that driving is, simply, in God’s hands.
All seeing perhaps, but aware of human frailties.
But some people were born to be idiots.
So daily peak hour gridlock at many key junctions and highway off-ramps breeding growing frustration, risk taking and an abundance of stupid behaviour.
There is real economic and social cost.
The time loss to industry, business, offices hours, simply getting children to and from school, hugely affects the economy, creating unnecessary fuel usage and pollution.
Many roads simply cannot take the strain, land acquisition which takes years to sell, or reclaim, decentralisation, which has been patchy.
Lots of talk, talk, about monorails but no real planning for a railway system, only “inaction,” which alas in Bahrain, is a real art form.
Rail takes cars and trucks off the roads.
In the interim, bus-only lanes, or cars with four adult passengers, in fast lanes, and strict policing of usage.
Banning trucks from the roads at peak times, is an overdue start, more traffic policemen at key points in a Back to the Future way.
Look at French traffic cop – more arms than an octopus, and traffic flows.
But while the roads builders play catch up, many of Bahrain’s traffic congestion areas already resemble some of the worlds most congested cities, all with a population infinitely larger than Bahrain’s.
Scandalous!
Floods – same time, often same places , every year.
Lots of reports and orders to incorporate change “next year,” next year comes, but, same old, same old mess.
Scores of trucks to suck up “lakes,” something a well maintained, drainage system, is designed to prevent flood waters accumulating.
Unthinkable, in a modern country, that there is not a planning authority that creates and oversights the operations of a national sewerage and drainage system, particularly as housing estates and apartments proliferate, simply adding to the flow.
The poop truck is a crap anachronism from the times of the “night-cart;” they have no place in a modern society.
Finally, the cruds, society’s scum and the brain-washed kids that block roads, night after night; have been doing so for years.
Passive, reactionary policing, simply not good enough, particularly when they block the entrances to hospitals, often moving in huge concrete blocks which can only have been done with construction equipment.
And nobody notices!
Creating ideal conditions for ambush.
As with any “guerilla” operation terrorists conduct, time and again at known choke points, the Custer like cavalry, police charging to the scene of the crime, is largely ineffective and for them, dangerous.
Why should non-Bahraini policemen take great risks?
Intelligence and disruption, take ‘em from the rear first’ tactics, are long overdue.