Architectural and urban solutions such as shaded spaces with cross ventilation and more human scale alleyways will create a more people-friendly pedestrian experience even during the harsh summer, an official at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has said.
“Souq Waqif is a good example of a place which had been attracting many people all year round,” MME’s Capacity Building and Research and Development head Ali A Alraouf said at the Smart Parking Conference yesterday.
In his presentation at a session titled “Future planning for people-friendly cities in Qatar,” he cited some of the cities around the world particularly in Europe which had been successful in transforming areas and freeways into pedestrian and bicycle routes.
Alraouf said Hamburg, one of the busiest cities in Germany, announced in 2014 its plans to become a car-free city in 20 years.
Local authorities are planning to connect pedestrians and cycle lanes in what is expected to become a large green network (gardens, public walking and bicycle routes), eliminating the need for cars.
He noted that another interesting plan and urban design patterns that started to emerge in many cities around the world include the pedestrian zones where cars are literally not
allowed.
“The pressure of having parking scattered all over the city is not going to be the fundamental problem that people are trying to confront,” the urban planner stressed, while observing that traffic and parking woes in Doha will not be resolved as long as people are encouraged to rely on cars.
“Whatever we will do in roads in terms of widening or minimising sidewalks, that will not solve the problem,” he said.
In the Qatar National Master Plan, Alraouf said, the idea of urban centres at Metro stations was suggested. These include having “the centre of the centre,” a main focal point where commuters come up from the station surrounded by different community facilities such as shopping, public spaces, and garden for children, among others.
Another interesting idea is the park and ride concept, according to the MME official. Motorists will take their cars to a parking area at a train station and then use public transportation either the Metro or a bus to reach their destinations.
“The whole beauty of this suggestion is that you will give us the opportunity to transform streets in Qatar into streets for people as opposed to streets for cars,” Alraouf added.