Several new landmarks in Dubai’s progress are in the news this week.

The one that’s most going to make our lives a little easier is the opening of the (temporary) Floating Bridge across Dubai Creek. With the recent opening of Business Bay Bridge we now have five alternative crossings and that should help to spread the load and ease the horrendous bottlenecks. These are the first new crossings since Shindagah Tunnel was opened about 25 years ago.

The six-lane bridge will be used until a permanent bridge can be built alongside it. Costing US$81.6 million it is built with 20 metre-wide hollow concrete blocks which float on water. It joins the area in Bur Dubai near Creek Park and Dubai Courts with Deira near City Centre Mall and Creek Golf & Yacht Club.

Photo: Devadasan. Gulf News.

The other transport landmarks are the arrival of the first articulated, extra-long buses and the starting of the water bus service across the Creek.

But the announcement that will get world-wide publicity is that Burj Dubai is on schedule to become on Saturday the world’s tallest building. More of that later.

The bus fleet will be increased with 80 new articulated and bi-articulated buses which will obviously help because there have been complaints from users that there are currently not enough buses, most are crowded and sometimes too full to pick up more waiting passengers.

The water buses will run in conjunction with the traditional abra ferries but will offer a much more comfortable ride – although much less atmospheric in my opinion, I like the old traditional way of crossing the Creek. Still, the new water buses are air-conditioned with comfortable seating. There are four routes, much the same as the abra routes but with the addition of a tourist route. That will cost AED25 while the normal Creek crossing will be, provisionally, AED4. The final fare is still to be agreed and approved. That compares with AED1 for the abra crossing.

World’s tallest building.

Burj Dubai, which I’ve posted about before, is currently the building with the most floors in the world, but is still a few metres shorter than Taipei 101. That’s all set to change by the end of Saturday July 21 when Burj Dubai is scheduled to become the world’s tallest building. I’ll post more about it when it reaches that height.