DOHA: The Public Works Authority 'Ashghal' has announced the completion of about 50 percentof the total development work on Waab Labariq Street and Rawdat Al Dakhriya Street in the Ain Khaled area, as part of the first phase of the road works development project in the city of Doha, which aims to regulate traffic movement on the main streets, developing roads and increasing their capacity to accommodate vehicles.
The project works to provide new parking lots for cars, develop roads, and expand them to a length of 3km to increase their capacity to accommodate traffic through the construction of two signalized intersections, in addition to providing designated pedestrian paths and bicycle paths, in addition to carrying out afforestation and agriculture works, and developing infrastructure services.
The project is also implementing a campaign to reduce carbon emissions resulting from the implementation of the work, as the project team works to identify construction activities that would consume a large amount of fuel.
On this occasion, EngMoza Al Suwaidi, Head of the Doha City Section in the Roads Projects Department at Ashghal, pointed out that Waab Labariq and Rawdat Al Dakhriya Streets are considered among the most important streets in the Ain Khaled area, and that their development serves many residential units and service and educational facilities.The most prominent among them are Umm Al Seneem Park, Umm Al Seneem Health Center, and Qatar School of Science and Technology, in addition to new shops and a shopping centre.
He also said: "The authority has spared no effort to support sustainability practices and green initiatives by involving all stakeholders and specialists from consulting companies, contractors, suppliers, as well as workers and others, and is making every effort to encourage them to adopt positive environmental practices and innovate new solutions and methods and apply them in the various stages of project implementation to benefit.”
It is worth noting that the completion rate has reached 50 percentwith the completion of one-way work in both Waab Labariq Street and Rawdat Al Dakhriya Street, and the provision of 250 designated parking spaces for vehicles, in addition to making progress in infrastructure network work.This comes with the implementation of 2.1km of surface water drainage network out of 3.5km, 0.4km of drinking water network lines out of 1km, and 4km of electricity lines out of 5km, in addition to extending 1.5km out of 8.5km of Street lighting cables and installation of 24 lighting poles out of 98 poles.
Work is currently underway to complete the work of the second direction of the two streets and the construction of two new traffic signals, in addition to the construction of 6 km of paths designated for pedestrians and bicycles, as well as beautification and landscaping works.
As for achieving the principles of sustainability and seeking to reduce carbon emissions, the road improvement works project team in the city of Doha (first phase) changed the approach it followed during the project’s excavation operations, as it employed more precise heavy equipment capable of controlling and determining the dimensions of the excavation. So that it does not exceed the required design specifications and avoids unnecessary excavations.The contractor implementing the project used a trencher and chain cutters to avoid excavation work that exceeds the specified dimensions.This equipment thus avoids excessive fuel consumption, which directly leads to lower carbon emissions.
As a result of these efforts, carbon emissions resulting from construction work at the project site in the Ain Khaled area were reduced by approximately 323 tonnes.These practices also have other benefits that have a positive impact on the environment, safety, and resource conservation. The use of this equipment has contributed to reducing noise and dust levels as it emits lower levels than other traditional equipment. It has also contributed to reducing the overall cost of project work.
Ashghal’s efforts to implement the concept of sustainability and environmental preservation resulted in many achievements, in line with the environmental development pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030. This also encouraged the companies implementing the projects to adopt many positive practices.In the field of reducing carbon emissions in particular, Ashghal has prepared the 'Monthly Environment and Sustainability Report' and has been keen to implement it since 2019, which is one of the innovative tools that aims to record and monitor all building materials and carbon emissions and their reduction rates and record them within the report, which has contributed to reducing carbon emissions in 2023 in all management projects.