CNN
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It’s quick. It’s driverless. It has a Gold Class for premium passengers. And it’s some of the superior metro practice programs ever constructed.
That is the Doha Metro, a gleaming transportation system that may carry followers to their vacation spot in subsequent yr’s soccer World Cup and, it’s hoped, will go on to revolutionize transport in Qatar.
Constructed largely underground and throughout the Qatari capital and its suburbs, the community has been operational since 2019, offering a dependable transportation different in a quickly increasing metropolis the place residents have lengthy relied on vehicles and visitors is continuously gridlocked.
Section one of many mission noticed the creation of 37 stations, with three traces – Crimson, Inexperienced and Gold – working alongside a 76-kilometer (47-mile) community.
The absolutely automated, 60-meter-long trains have a 416-passenger capability and are divided into three sections: Commonplace, Household (for lone females and males or females commuting with kids aged 11 or youthful) and Gold (Goldclub Journey Card holders) class.
Clear and spacious, the trains can cruise at as much as 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) and are absolutely geared up with CCTV and public Wi-Fi programs. They even have USB ports in order that Gold class vacationers can cost cell phones and tablets whereas in transit.
The stations had been all designed to symbolize a imaginative and prescient of each modernization and preservation, fusing conventional options of regional structure with a up to date strategy.
“It was essential that the design would relate to its context, to town of Doha and to Qatar,” Ben van Berkel, co-founder of UNStudio, a Dutch structure agency that joined forces with the Qatar Rail Structure Division to create the stations, tells CNN Journey.
“We wished to merge the previous and the way forward for Qatar in a single gesture, so we drew inspiration from numerous conventional Qatari architectural parts – significantly the arch – and adjusted this to create what we discuss with as ‘vaulted areas,’” he says.
“So, whereas the exteriors considerably reference the monolithic energy of outdated Qatari structure, the inside areas create an impact of sunshine, motion and fluidity.”
Whereas curved kinds and illumination had been key design parts, sustaining a transparent architectural identification was additionally important.
Van Berkel stated one of many important challenges with a model new mission of this scale was “to create a design which allows each coherence and individuality.”
“On the one hand, it’s a must to create recognition factors throughout an entire metropolis, whereas on the opposite, every particular person station has to have its personal scale, identification and reply to its particular context,” he explains.
The architects tackled this by way of using recurring parts and supplies, together with stable sandstone exteriors and putting interiors with a mother-of-pearl iridescence – a nod to Qatar’s lengthy historical past as a serious pearl-diving and buying and selling hub.
By devising a regular however adaptive system it additionally turned doable to make use of quite a lot of configurations, every of which reply to the particular necessities and sizes of the person stations.
“The size of the metro community in Doha required cautious planning to be able to adjust to a strict time schedule and obtain minimal disruption to the prevailing infrastructure,” Van Berkel says. “For that reason, flexibility turned a design and planning goal on all ranges.”
On the coronary heart of all of it is Msheireb Station, the most important within the community in addition to its interchange serving as a hub for all three traces working by way of it.
Huge and modern, the spectacular station includes a complete of 4 important ranges and has a depth of roughly 40 meters. Previous its illuminated entrance, triangular arched kinds adorned with hexagon-shaped pearlescent tiles lend a futuristic look that extends all the best way to the platform ranges.
The station’s wealthy inside areas additionally provide an array of business retailers, whereas the modest exterior is dotted with bicycle racks.
Exterior, commuters and passersby can even marvel at a mural by Doha-based artist Abdulaziz Yousef Ahmed titled “Household Reunion” – one of many a number of items of artwork on show alongside the community, which embody a reproduction of the Greek statue of “Charioteer of Delphi” that World Cup spectators will come throughout upon arrival at Hamad Worldwide Airport metro station.
The world’s largest soccer occasion remains to be greater than a yr away, however preparations are already underway, with the brand new subterranean rail community at their core.
Contained in the Sport Metropolis station, massive posters of blue-and-white footballs emblazoned with arrows level in direction of the course of the close by Khalifa Worldwide Stadium, one of many venues that may host the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
Organizers anticipate multiple million individuals to reach in Doha through the first World Cup to be held within the Center East and the Arab world – and the Metro system was designed to be its transportation pillar.
The system straight hyperlinks Doha’s Hamad Worldwide Airport with 5 of the eight stadiums internet hosting Qatar 22 matches, with the remaining websites of the compact occasion being accessible by way of a combination of rail and bus choices.
Organizers say the Doha Metro will – in live performance with bus and tram routes – shuttle followers between their resorts, the stadiums and town’s numerous vacationer points of interest.
“The metro system is environment friendly, electrical and makes use of regenerative braking programs which assist to scale back the carbon footprint,” World Cup organizers say on their web site. “As well as, all of the metro stations are designed and operated beneath inexperienced constructing certification – making certain their inexperienced credentials.”
Wanting past the World Cup, officers see the increasing Doha Metro as a key infrastructural element of the Qatar Nationwide Imaginative and prescient 2030 – the gas-rich nation’s improvement plan to diversify its financial system – that may profit future generations within the years to observe the soccer event closing on December 18, 2022.
“The legacy that eco-transportation will go away is one thing that shall be felt by everybody in Qatar lengthy after the World Cup,” says Thani Al Zarraa, mobility director for the occasion’s Supreme Committee for Supply & Legacy.
