Piling rigs around Dubai mark the start of construction of the Middle East’s first metro, intended to abate growing traffic congestion in the hyperactive emirate. Tunneling is due to begin in January on the project, expected to employ up to 9,000 workers through the middle of 2010. In a hurry as ever, the municipality gave a Japanese-led construction joint venture 49 months, until September 2009, to complete the first 52-kilometer Red Line.

In August, the government authorized Dubai municipality’s Roads and Transport Authority to exercise an option to include the 17.6-km Green Line in the contract. Green Line construction will follow the Red by six months, says Bassam Mansour, RTA’s director of engineering for railways. “Given the challenges we have had in terms of site investigations, traffic and utility diversions, it’s going O.K....We have finished the first TBM shaft,” he says.