Dubai to launch metro with third of stations open

[Naveed Yaseen]

DUBAI: Dubai on Wednesday opens a metro network in a bid to cut dependency on cars and ease congestion, becoming the first city in the oil-rich Gulf to introduce rail as a commuting option.

Trains rolling out of stations will for the first time carry passengers along the Red Line, the first of two metro lines to open.

A Green Line is scheduled to enter service in summer 2010.

But amid much media fanfare, travel on Wednesday evening is to be confined to dignitaries invited for the opening ceremony, while the service will be open to commuters from Thursday.

The city state has more than one million vehicles, with cars and buses accounting for 88 per cent almost one car for every two inhabitants of a population estimated between 1.6 million and some two million, mostly foreigners.

But it remains to be seen whether motorists will be lured to leave their cars at home and hop onto the fancy air-conditioned blue trains, whose stations and connecting walkways are also temperature-controlled.

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