FLYOVERS to ease traffic congestion in a bustling education district in the middle of the country could be underway.
The Southern Municipal Council has urged the Works Ministry to present an urgent study to help tackle the ongoing traffic jams that start from the Educational District and affect the surrounding areas.
The district in Isa Town is home to Bahrain Polytechnic, Bahrain Training Institute (BTI) and a college of Bahrain University.
It is also home to 10 schools, the Education Ministry, the Information Ministry, the Information and eGovernment Authority and other government bodies and departments.
“The educational area will continue to have problems because there is a flow of parents dropping their children off at school, students driving their own vehicles to school and university and training institute students,” said council chairman Abdulla Abdullatif.
“The whole roads’ network has to be re-engineered in the area to tackle the current traffic headache,” he added.
“The existing roads need an expansion even on a limited scale as the government puts in plans for two flyovers.
“When people get stuck in traffic for an average hour during peak times and half-an-hour on any other time, then there is clearly something wrong.”
Work was completed on a four-lane road passing between Sacred Heart School and Shaikh Abdulla Technical Secondary School for Boys and connecting Shaikh Salman Highway to Road 4109 in Isa Town in 2017.
It was among 11 urgent road developments designed to tackle increased traffic congestion in the country.
However, Mr Abdullatif argued that the new road alone was not enough to tackle traffic congestion in the area.
“The truth is the whole project reduced traffic jams by just five per cent,” he said.
“The project is just a painkiller; it is not a true remedy and major action is needed.”
Mr Abdullatif claimed most of the educational buildings in the neighbourhood were 30 years old on average and needed replacing.
“The government will eventually replace them, but it shouldn’t do so on the same site.
“If that’s the plan, we will be faced with more traffic jams – which will make things worse.”
Meanwhile, the council’s technical committee chairman Hamad Al Zoubi said taking and bringing his two children from a private school in the district was a bad driving experience that just wastes valuable time.
“The number of times I just slam the brakes and have to wait for the queue to move is tiresome, frustrating and irritating,” he said.
“It is an easier morning drive from my hometown Zallaq to Riffa, but then reaching the district is the worst daily experience, and the same taking children back home.
“I have heard that the Northern Municipal Council a few years ago rejected permitting a private school currently in the district to build a new campus in Saar on reasons that it would create traffic jams.
“Saar is much more manageable and if they would have approved the move, things wouldn’t have got worse in Isa Town.”
mohammed@gdnmedia.bh
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