Living all sides

Ah, July! Temperatures are soaring to record highs – around 50 degrees centigrade – the fog on my glasses as I step out of the air-conditioned comfort of my car, home and office and the humidity that causes my clothes to stick like a second skin are slowly becoming major irritants.

On the other hand, however, schools are out, many families are off on vacation to cooler climes, traffic has thinned out making driving an absolute pleasure and nobody’s asking, "Do you have a reservation, madam?" when I go out to an impromptu lunch or dinner.

There’s always more than one side to every situation and unfortunately I’ve found out that most of us – call it the human condition – think seriously of one side, like it very much and then begin the moan and groan much to our detriment.

For the last two weeks we at XPRESS have focused on the taxi issue. Traffic and public transportation has been a bugbear for most of us for many moons now but not until last week did we find out that there’s more to the situation than we saw or knew.

Come to think of it: while taxi drivers and the Roads and Transport Authority are "negotiating", the third side – the consumer – who simply looks forward to a dependable, value for money public transport is forced to suffer in silence, because there’s not much we can do about it and mostly because the other alternative is to go out and buy or rent a car to add to our traffic problems.

Right then, while I have emphasised two and three sides to a situation I’m sure readers can come up with more sides to the situation than I can count.

It’s all about differing view points and it’s quite possible that any solution might not necessarily be to the liking of all.

Please don’t forget to read all four pages of our cover story about how Jumeirah Garden City and Arabian Canal will transform Dubai into the Venice of the East.

Lots of people have said lots of things about the projects. Many have left it unsaid.

All I’m saying is, "If the taxi and traffic situation does not improve, I’ll be looking forward to travelling all over Dubai in my little gondola."

Nirmala Janssen
editor@alnisrmedia.com

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