Dubai might ban poor people from owning cars to ease traffic problem

Dubai, like any big city of the world is facing a crisis of a problem. Traffic. Despite six lane roads and state of the art road networking, the problem is ever increasing. While other cities may move towards more traditional forms of controlling the traffic like improving road networks, adding lanes to the roads, adding tax on vehicles in city centers, congestion charges on big vehicles, etc…but that is not what Dubai has in mind.

Amongst other options, Hussain Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality has reportedly suggested at a recent business forum in Germany that the Emirate may ban the poor from owning cars.

The National.ae reports, “a salary limit scheme that would restrict car ownership to those earning above a certain monthly income”, Lootah said, “Everybody has their luxury life, but the capacity of our roads cannot take all of these cars without ownership laws,” he said in a speech.

We think that the backlash on the salary-related restriction will be big and it may not be able but the Dubai government has other options such as; increase on parking fees, fuel prices, toll road fees, insurance rates, congestion charges, etc to demotivate people from owning cars.

But other than limiting people from owning cars, Dubai government is also working towards improving public transportation before implementing any law to control traffic. The new tram system is set to begin testing this week to make people come off the roads and on to the public transportation system.