To connect the main Dubai neighborhoods, there is the 12-lane highway running parallel to the sea (the Sheikh Zayed road… quite obvious name!), which is very packed! To avoid traffic, Dubai introduced a pay system for this highway which automatically registers your car (like the German toll collect system), but it doesn’t seem very dissuasive!
For tourists, the most popular means of transport is taxi. It is obviously very convenient and in the UAE, the transparent pricing system with fancy board computers is very visitor-friendly. No need to be scared of being ripped off. I don’t want to know what would happen to a dishonest taxi driver if you went to the tourist police to denounce him… I guess he would be put on the next boat back to India…!
However, I am convinced that you haven’t visited a place until you have tested all the public transports! So no to taxis (unless there is no alternative).
The city bus system is quite developed too, but not easily accessible for tourists since there is no network map or timetable available at the bus stops. Talking about bus stops, they are air-conditioned in Dubai, which is certainly quite nice in the summer months!
There is a new tramway making a loop through the Marina neighborhood. It’s beautiful, has meshed windows for sun protection (and runs without ugly power cables), but I don’t really see the added value since it is easy to walk around in this area.
To me, the best means of transport is the Dubai metro! It was such a pleasure to use this metro that it deserved its own article! Dubai has 2 metro lines, which makes moving around the city easy. There are only a few places which cannot be reached by metro where you need to take either a bus or walk (walk a lot!).
To pay for the rides, a chip card – the NOL card – needs to be purchased. You load it with money and can use it in all the public transports of the Dubai Emirate. You only need to tag on and off the metro stations or buses and it debits automatically the right fare! This is of course nothing unique and I have used it in many metropoles in the world… But seriously, every time I have the chance to use such a card pay system, it makes me cry that Germany is still so behind with that! I feel like we will still buy paper tickers in 2100 in Berlin! And not paper tickets with a magnetic stripe or any kind of intelligence! No… paper tickets with badly-printed info that the controlling guys need to read! (not talking about some cities like Munich where the pricing system with all its zones and rings, and sub-rings, etc… is so complicated that you need to get a PhD to get the right ticket!)
But Dubai wouldn’t be Dubai if there wasn’t anything special about this NOL card…! You can indeed purchase 2 types of card: the gold or the silver one! Basically, it’s like first or second class anywhere else, but gold and silver sounds more Dubai-esque! Some Internet sites and friends being in Dubai advised me to buy a Gold card, so I did so!
I regretted it afterwards because you pay twice as much for each ride, and I didn’t really get the advantages! You get to seat in the reserved gold wagon, with wide seats, air-conditioning and a nice view since it is the first (or last!) wagon of the driver-less metro. But seriously, the silver class also has a first (or last) wagon and air conditioning. It is just a bit more crowded. And maybe it doesn’t smell as good as in the gold class! There was always a great clean smell and it was really spotless!
In addition to the gold card wagon, there is also a special lady wagon (but they don’t need to purchase a pink card to use it! Haha!).
The red line is mainly running outdoors on an elevated bridge, parallel to the highway, and offers great views of the city. It is basically a cheap sightseeing ride (or expensive one if you are gold like me!).
A special architecture price for this building looking like a frame (but not for the Egyptian-style buildings on the left… obelisk and pyramid…!)
The metro stations almost all look the same, and are so beautiful… really futuristic! Some station entrances in the historic center have a more discrete design, imitating old buildings.
And the interior design of these stations is just obscene and too much!
Free like a bear 