The pictures here will attest to that. But I must add that it isn't very large. It consists basically of 3 underground levels. The uppermost is the ticket lobby which stands out with its flourescent blue light panels on the ceiling. Below this is the mid-level which, while little more than an escalator lobby of sorts between the ticket and boarding floors, is festooned with historic photographic murals and grandiose jellyfish chandeliers. The lowest level, with the boarding platforms, has similar murals--all floors do--and all floors are bathed in iridescent blue light. Words cannot adequately describe the grandeur, but pictures can. It is all so rich--I absolutely love it.
Before I go on, I must digress, however, with a word of warning on the use of the Nol card with buses.
Beware of Bus Transfers
Let me start off this little aside by giving away my sentiment about the buses--They SUCK--Royally!! How can I limit this to a few sentences?
The buses here have the most convoluted routes and it is nearly impossible to get actionable information so that you can use the buses without having to rely on trial and error. (Maybe the new Feeder buses represent a degree of improvement. My concern and great frustration is with the regular run of buses that many of us are forced to rely on with only 10 metro stations open.)
Without going into tedious detail, I would suffice it to say that I am going through a lot of trials and even more errors in trying to figure out how to get from A to B on the sucking buses.
The buses, themselves, are actually quite magnificent--big, brawny, cool and comfortable--but the drivers, the human interface, are the weak link (if not the missing link). They are useless as sources of information about their own routes and they seem for the most part quite happy to stop or not stop as they please for pick-ups and drop-offs. They basically ignore whatever their official duties are apart form pressing a gas pedal and steering.
Too bad we can't have driverless buses.
Now, the thing to beware...
When you swipe your Nol card to get on the bus and to presumably get a free journey after disembarking the metro, there are a couple of issues.
One is that when you later swipe the card again to get off the bus, the bus may interpret this not as an ending swipe but a new starting swipe, so you may get double charged.
Even worse, if you fail to swipe your card on exit, which I decided to do in order to avoid getting charged double, you instead get charged the maximum travel charge. Now on buses, this is 2 dhs--no big deal, right? But it doesn't work like this. You don't get charged the maximum bus fare, you get charged the maximum metro fare! So it's 5.8 dhs.
I did this twice unaware of what was happening, so my Nol card ended up with a negative balance and when I went to top it up, it instead sucked up all the money I had just put in and left me with still a negative balance. The moral of the story? The buses SUCK! And I threw that sucking Nol card away and decided to take a loss and start all over again with a new card.
Ok--got that off my chest--now back to the magnificent Bur Juman station. Feast on the images. Viva Khalid Bin al Waleed!!
This just in from the RTA...
Inquiring about these high bus charges, I was told that the buses are now on the same fee structure as the Metro. I don't remember any public announcements of the same, but there you go... a Unified Fare System.
That explains a lot. I had wondered why the 5 Zones indicated for Metro charges seemed somewhat irrelevant as the Metro didn't pass through some of the listed zones. Now, those still carrying the former bus cards with credit still on them will still get charged the flat 2 Dhs fare.
One more thing...
indicating that the RTA are not all bad. I called 3 days ago informing them of a bus shelter with non-functioning a/c. When I visited the shelter today, I found the a/c had been repaired. The many cynical among the public never bother to call to report such faults.
Thanks RTA
Khalid Bin al Waleed Station on the Dubai Metro
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| Jellyfish chandeliers at Bur Juman metro station in Dubai. | |
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| (Click on images for enlarged views.) |
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| Historic photographic images line the walls of the metro station. | |
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| Passengers make their way between the boarding platform and ticket levels. |
| Metallic blue reflective panels function to bathe the escalator shaft in blue. | |
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| Blue iridescent lighting floods the ticket lobby. | |
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| The beautiful historic murals feature both in the ticket lobby and on the platforms. | |
 |  Khalid Bin al Waleed station is sort of like a living museum. For a space intended as little more than a transit hub it is impossible not to want to linger. Green line passengers, once it opens in 2010, will be able to soothe their minds feast their eyes as well in this elegant blue zone. |
Addendum to the Bus Fiasco
I submitted the following message to the RTA,
Bus charged me Dhs 5.8 for not swiping out! It's a bus not the metro, so why this maximum charge? It happened twice, registered a negative balance on my Nol card, then when I topped up my Nol card with 10 dhs it immediately ate it up and left me still with a negative balance. I threw the damn Nol card away and bought a new one. Please fix this. Buses should not be charging metro fares whether one swipes when getting off or not!Please, if anyone else encounters such bus fiascoes, complain direct to the RTA.
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