Interchange Four and a Half

Interchange Four and a Half on Sheikh Zayed Road was opened yesterday. Yee-haa! This creates a badly-needed new access into Media City / Interweb City / Knowledge Hamlet. I haven't used it yet, but it does seem to have eased our morning progress up SZR to Police Academy Interchange a little bit.

But now this raises the issue of the names of these interchanges. In the olden days it was very simple - you had Trade Centre (i/c 1), Defence (i/c 2), Safa Park (i/c 3), Police College (i/c 4), Middle-of-Nowhere (i/c 5), Jebel Ali Village (i/c 6) and Jebel Ali Port and Free Zone. Now we have the new interchange (and it's a beauty - long, soaring, gorgeous bridges) between 4 & 5. Shortly we will have a smaller one between 4.5 and 5, so that will be four-and-three-quarters. There's also the Binned Potato Interchange between 5 and 6, and a one-way bridge into Al Quoz between 3 and 4. The old interchange five is now a no-go zone while it is re-built over the next couple of years.

The old interchanges used to have big signs on them that told you what they were called. The new ones have massive adverts for Emaar, Mall of the Emirates and Ibn Battuta. Very confusing for newcomers, I'm sure.