Yours truly by the Dubai Canal, with the Tolerance Bridge at the back, Nov 2016
Since we touched on the Dubai Canal, here’s a look at the canal during the construction phase, where yours truly was involved for the last 1.5 months prior to the official opening.
Mind you, we (CSCEC, the company I work for) did not construct the canal proper. We constructed two vehicular bridges across the canal, converting two major existing roads into bridges, so that the canal can be constructed underneath the raised bridges. The actual canal including the Tolerance Bridge (a pedestrian bridge) was constructed by a company called Besix.
Here’s one of the bridges CSCEC constructed, the Al Wasl Bridge
My job however was not the bridge. It was constructing and finishing the friggin car park below Al Wasl Bridge, which is the main car park for the Dubai Canal (Tolerance Bridge part) and Safa Park. We did it in a record 1.5 months!
Foreman Aksar Ali, my only foreman for the first ummm 2 weeks of my stint. Look at the muck the car park was in on Day 2 of my arrival. Aksar Ali was good but he had to go back to Pakistan due to some unavoidable circumstances… After he left, there was no friggin foreman, and I had to deal directly with operators and workers!?! Only after a week or so later, (with a lot of complaining from yours truly) did some supervisors started joining my team, whew…
The car park taking form – first day of asphalting works on Day 21 of my arrival
The foremen who subsequently joined the car park team – Sajid (left) and Shahid (middle), with a Chinese foremen of another section (…no, don’t remember his name) on top of the Tolerance Bridge on 10 Nov 2016, right after the opening of the Dubai Canal. Dubai Water Canal was officially inaugurated on the evening of 9 Nov 2016
Thinking back, my site was a good site – Where else could we, road construction people, work in the shade? (The bulk of our works were below the bridge!) And we had fantastic views of the canal and the Tolerance Bridge, so much so that people from our head office, consultants, workers, heck, just about anyone involved with the project, would visit our site just for a photograph! Here’re views of how the canal and the Tolerance Bridge took shape.
Dubai Canal – 24 Sep 2016 (Day 1 of my arrival)
Dubai Canal – 7 Oct 2016 (Day 14)
Dubai Canal flooded – 24 Oct 2016 (Day 31)
Dubai Canal opened! - 11 Nov 2016 (2 days after the inauguration)
Tolerance Bridge – close up views
An unnamed pedestrian bridge further upstream from Tolerance Bridge
Al Wasl Bridge after the Dubai Canal inauguration with a still uncompleted pedestrian bridge behind (the twisted white structure)
The twisted foot bridge completed – during Dad’s visit in July 2017
And this was our site office in Business Bay!
That’s all folks!
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