A NEW ring road that will encircle Manama is in the planning phase. The idea is to tackle traffic congestion in Bahrain’s capital by creating a non-stop loop road with no traffic lights, roundabouts or any other junctions.

Vehicles would simply enter and exit the circular highway using slip roads, allowing traffic to navigate the city more easily and increasing the average speed of motorists.

The new Mina Salman interchange project is expected to be a major component of the ring road, but designs will take more than a year to complete.

Works Ministry roads special projects section chief Sayed Bader Ali said the cabinet had already approved preliminary designs, but the ring road would have to be created section by section.

It would run north from Mina Salman to the Diplomatic Area and west past the Bahrain Financial Harbour to the Al Farooq Junction before taking traffic back to Mina Salman.

Ali added that all major road projects should be well under way by 2021.

“The Mina Salman interchange will be the corner of the ring road,” said Ali.

“At the moment we are just starting a study for the Al Fateh Highway, which will take this important ring road highway from the Mina Salman interchange to the North Manama Causeway next to the national museum.

“It still has to be designed in detail and approved for implementation.

“The designs will address all traffic issues such as whether there is a need for road widening, interchanges, underpasses and flyovers.

“That work should be starting in the next couple of years,” he said.

Ali explained that detailed studies still had to be carried out and a digital simulation would have to be done to see how the ring road would affect traffic behaviour.

He estimated it would take over a year to run through hundreds of different simulations determining the ideal combination of interchanges, flyovers and underpasses.

“The ring road will definitely be finished before 2030,” he said.

“The study and detailed designs should be finished between the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

“Once all the designs are in place, the Works Ministry will be able to begin tendering and start implementation,” Ali said.

It is expected that part of the ring road would incorporate the Al Farooq Junction, formerly known as the GCC (Pearl) Roundabout.

Meanwhile, Bahrain has lined up a number of other major projects, including a plan to create a new interchange near Alba similar to the one almost completed at Mina Salman. Work is due to start soon on the Alba road project.

The Mina Salman tunnel project was due to open by the end of last month, according to assistant undersecretary for roads Huda Fakhro.

In another development, work on a new bridge in Bahrain connecting Muharraq and Arad is expected to start next year, a report said.