Can you tell me how to get...

If this edition was an episode of Sesame Street, it would have been brought to you today by the letter Q. Indeed, traffic is a reoccurring theme this month.

From the havoc caused by a change in truck times in Sharjah, to a study which suggests that heavy vehicles are going to have to endure more heavy traffic, it seems that the region is stuck in an impossible situation, in that more roads just equal more traffic, which harms the economy, but without the traffic, the economy wouldn’t exist at all.

However, it seems to me that there is an obvious answer. Firstly, the arcane systems used at checkpoints need to be modernized – this alone will halve the congestion.

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Secondly – and I’m picking my words very carefully here as I know some of you make a living out of heavy transport fleets – we should capitalise on the current enthusiasm that the residents of the Gulf currently have for rail projects (another theme for this issue).

I’m not talking about little metropolitan railways for passengers, I mean a proper freight system, capable of moving many shipping containers. I know that there are major projects to this effect underway in Saudi Arabia and there is a plan mooted for the whole of the UAE, but this is not enough. For a railway to be any use it has to go to other places, just like a road. There is no reason why a major network, like those in North America, could not be built, spanning from Oman to Abu Dhabi, and traveling north to Damascus and Turkey, and even connecting with Europe’s railways. As you’ll also read in this issue, it has been done before.

Of course, the will has to be there – and this is an even harder thing to find than the money in which to do it. In my opinion it must be done, lest all the major routes in the region get stuck in perpetual gridlock, just like Big Bird’s New York.