The high income of the Gulf States has facilitated heavy investment
in extensive road networks, with high-capacity highways and arterials
encircling neighbourhoods and cities.The country paved and repaired nearly 6,000 km of roads
from 2007 to 2009.152 in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah's network comprises
564 km of roads, including 100 km of freeways that by the city's own
admission are over-scaled and inefficient consumers of urban land.Concurrent with rising GDP per capita and road construction projects,
the Gulf has motor vehicle ownership rates roughly equivalent to those
of other high-income countries.Given their small size, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar are focusing
on regional rail, bridge and air linkages with other cities in the region;
these initiatives are explored in Section 4.8 emerging issues [10-13].174 Traffic-related
deaths in Oman have consistently risen since 2000 and may soon
overtake the rates in Qatar and Saudi Arabia if measures are not taken
to improve road safety.The Gulf governments have developed
transportation master plans to reduce congestion and improve public
transit, the safety of pedestrian networks and the general quality of
urban life.The most ambitious urban public
transportation undertakings are in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Jeddah.