Yes! Scraping the skies and not taking us with it, leaving us down here with "parking rage", the cousin of 'road rage". We are well on our way to becoming another Dubai. Tall buildings sprouting up like mushrooms, all the way from Lulu Island to Al Raha. Who's going to occupy them? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is the city is growing upwards, albeit at a slower rate now due to the recession, but growing nonetheless.
What does this mean for us residents? It should mean cheaper rents, more (or at least better) services and job opportunities. Maybe that'll come later, but for now this growth has translated for most of us into traffic jams, and lack of parking space, and the bane of Abu Dhabi city residents, MAWAQIF!!! Oh! MAWAQIF. For those who don't already know, Mawaqif is the city's new parking "system", designed to decrease congestion in the city centre. What they did was paint the kerbs turquoise and black, and set up parking meters in the city centre. So we now have to pay for parking at 2 to 3 dirhams per hour, or 15 dirhams a day.
What if you live in the city centre?
Then you'll have to buy a space outside your house at 800 dirhams/year for the first car and 1200 dirhams/year for a second car if you have one. Maximum 2 cars per household. Do you hear someone laughing? I thought so, and is the laughter coming from the direction of the bank? Heh heh!
Go to www.mawaqif.ae for more.
Has it eased congestion? Meh! not for me, not by much, mainly because no new parking spaces have been created so far,we're vying for the same old existing ones. So it's the same as it never was, I guess. I'm so glad I'm on local vacay so at least I won't have to worry about the 15 dirhams I pay daily to park at work. Thankfully, I live out of the city centre in a purely residential area, so I don't see Mawaqif coming here ever.
The weather is super fine, we gots to fire up the BBQ this weekend, Inshallah.
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