Proposed Policies to Support the New Metro System in Qatar

摘要

Rapid urbanization and motorization around the world presents challenges to various countries, cities, and individual citizens. While the struggle in the Western world focuses on the battle with automobiles and their dominance in all aspects of daily lives, the developing countries in the Gulf, such as Qatar, face the dilemma of serving tremendous growth in the travel demand constrained by limited land and inferior infrastructure. Qatar is facing an unprecedented challenge to deal with rapid motorization and urbanization within the country. The paper presented some of Qatar's policies and projects that have been promoted by the government to address the fast growing transport demands in the country's urban areas with special reference to the Doha Metro Network, which will ultimately consist of four Metro lines with 98 stations serving the City of Doha. The metro's first phase is expected to be completed in 2020 in order to be ready for the Qatar 2022 FIFA Work Cup, while the final phase is expected to be completed in 2026. To ensure that a safe, integrated, responsive, and sustainable land transport system is provided, this paper proposed some strategies and approaches on land development, transportation accessibility, and transit service to be applied within the areas covered by the new Doha metro system. These proposed policies, if applied, will contribute to the success of the new metro system.