This is going to be one of my venting posts on Salmiya. The sidewalks situation on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya is a horrible mess. It’s a very pedestrian heavy strip, and probably gets the most amount of foot traffic compared to any other strip in Kuwait, yet the sidewalks are miserable.
There are a number of issues with the sidewalks in Salmiya including:
– lack of wheelchair or stroller friendly sidewalks
– building construction occupying the whole sidewalk
– large bushes taking up the whole sidewalk (pictured above)
– sidewalks that have deteriorated
– sidewalks that were opened up for work but never put back together right
Yesterday I spotted the woman in the photo above with her two kids having to get off the sidewalk and walk in the street because of a large bush. Recently I’ve also been noticing a man in an electric wheelchair roaming around Salmiya occupying the same road as the cars. It’s a total mess but of course nobody cares.
/end rant
34 replies on “Our Horrible Sidewalks”
At least the camera monitoring will record the accidents.
I literally walked into a cement block in the middle of the sidewalk while walking my dog in Mishref. cut 3 toes. But who cares ya?
If you dont like it u can go back to your country im sure the infastructure there is great .lol
I do hope you are being sarcastic. And yes, Canada indeed has one of the world’s best infrastructure (especially for pedestrians).
He may have a canadian passport but he will never be a true canadian . Hes labanese , so many ppl automatically assume they are part of a country just cuz they have a piece of paper
I wonder if I would be considered a “true Canadian” by you, Ahmed? I was born on Canadian soil to Canadian parents… Plus I’m white! Is that the main identifier that you need? Mark (and anyone else who has a Canadian passport) is a “true Canadian” in my books. By the way, many would say the only “true Canadians” are the ones who lived on the lands there before passports even existed… Technically most all of us are immigrants if you look back far enough…
What’s “labanese”? Is that a country with, like, the best laban? If so, sign me up for a citizenship right now, because it’s starting to get really hot in Kuwait. Mark, seeing that you’re “labanese”, do you have any special laban recipes up your sleeve? 😀
So then what are YOU originally? Saudi, Iraqi or Irani ?
You make a valid point, but I don’t think many find it okay be identified as being originally from “Saudi.”
I think Ahmed the troll went back to his cave just realising how stupid he looks now. 2 minutes of silence for him..
Ahmed, Ahmed, Ahmed. You’re stuck in a Kuwaiti ideology (which is understandable, but I believe is wrong anyway [for the future of Kuwait I mean]), see in Canada, once you have the paper, you are a “true Canadian” that’s kindof the beauty of the freedom there(and many other places in the first world), there’s no “Iqama” or levels of Citizenship (Jinsiya oola, etc). I’m in Canada right now, I see non-“true Canadians” all around, being treated like every other white person I see (what you may consider to be true Canadian)
There is no “TRUE CANADIAN” unless you are talking about indigenous Canadians, and they only make up around 3% of Canada’s population, so by those standards not even Canada is true Canadian.
Maybe some of these people might identify as ‘Lebasese-Canadian’, ‘Kuwaiti-Canadian’, etc. But in the eyes of the law, all are equal.
Do us all a favor and open up your mind.
Can’t tell if this is a joke comment or not… 🤔
Oh and another thing. If Mark doesn’t like it, he can say it. If you don’t like what he says you can also not like it; very simple.
If you don’t like the fact that he can say it and you can’t do jackshit except say “go back home” like a bigot, YOU can actually leave.
These are valid points, all facts, about how things around him are mismanaged and/or neglected. He has lived here since you were born (guessing your age from the content in your post) and he’s entitled to his own opinions. He has good intentions and he’s doing more than most of us, which usually only includes dewaniya trash-talk and complaining while sitting on our fat asses thinking why isn’t anyone doing anything about it.
Find another place to go be a bigot and leave our blog alone
/rant 🙂
“IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU CAN GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY”
If you don’t like that fact that Mark doesn’t appreciate poor infrastructure you can go fart in a bag and inhale that deeply.
Sarcasm, brah.
Fine then, don’t inhale deeply.
hahahahahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh LMAO
It’s attitudes like: “If you don’t like it go back to your own country!” that hinder the development of Kuwait. People who spout this particular mantra, should make a stand against such issues and drive progress forward. And for the record, I couldn’t stand the deterioration, the lack of concern and the general state of the place, so I left!
To the retards yelling “go back to your country”, what Mark is doing is more patriotic than most lazy people who sit on their ass and troll the comment section. By pointing out the negative side of things he’s doing it simply because he cares, and he wants the best for this country, his country, whether you like that fact or not.
Kuwait is a welfare state for a reason, you can’t play it off as nationalism, it’s just institutionalized racism.
Patriotic is stretch lol, but I appreciate everything Mark is doing to highlight issues like this.
nice post.. u made difference before so let’s be optimistic
love the comments lol
Oh and here we go again…
It’s amazing how people like to slander the ones who want a change for the better. it’s like oh keep it as it is.. we are milking the country, living in personal wealth, we don’t want it to change we might loose all our perks… it’s like they live home with mom…
I have an office overlooking the street, and the shit I see everyday…. For a street so heavily populated with pedestrian why the speed limit is not reduced? Same on Gulf Road?
– Why no pedestrian over or underpasses?
– Why no proper buss stops?
– Why not more zebra crossings with lights?
– Why no public heavy duty garbage cans? I don’t consider the orange ones on a stick even an attempt, that was baseball practice.
Yet the government use tons of time on the advertisement case, so we have beautiful mopi and uni poles now. Every fucking 20 meters, with more food and handbags. Yippi.
Well I done my dues and waited in patience for some change, it will not happen. Kuwait will remain like it is for the next 15 years.
So I also say adios very soon…
Well going by everyones word, I think Mark was born here so his country of origin is here 😀
Watermelon..
To the person who is over sensitive to criticism addressing the infrastructure’s terrible condition :
Take the time to ask yourself what is Mark’s intent writing about it .
He is simply doing it in the hope that his post will trigger change and improvement .
In other words he has Kuwait’s benefit in mind , he is a person who cares about this country’s image in addition to the well-being and comfort of all users of these roads.
He has no personal gain , on the contrary, he writes about these issues knowing very well the shower of clichés and insults he will incur.
You should appreciate his attempt to make Kuwait a better place for everyone and be supportive of his effort.
+1
Agree…
+1
why isnt anyone talking about the man in an electric wheelchair roaming around Salmiya ??? isnt he supposed to go back to his own country 🙂
those bushes were a problem even before they started building next to it. they do get a trim sometimes, but they do grow quickly.
its a regular thing where a new building takes over the pavement whilst it’s being built. Usually no one does anything , but they recently (well few months back) started fencing off an area at the end of baghdad street and they decided to put the fence across the traffic lights and even cut off access to MOI cameras there and they were forced to change the fencing. But if you walk down the old part of salmiya where another complex is going up, behind the rarely used multi storey car park, they have taken over all the pavement and everyone is forced off the pavement.
another thing that needs sorting, which will help drivers as well as pedestrians, is the traffic lights by salam mall.
if driving past the sign in the picture and you get to the traffic lights , by salam mall,there is no left turn towards the 5th. the traffic lights should be changed so each set of lights gets a turn .this would help drivers, who wouldnt feel the need to risk turning left (its rare to see anyone trying to cross towards the gulf road) and help people trying to cross who don’t always realise that someone is going to potentially run them over.
they have done it in some areas but salmiya still has this set of lights and the one on amman street where changing the light sequence would help traffic flow to get out of salmiya.
Mark, you should report this to the municipality’s twitter, or at least have someone translate the summary to them, they have been very reactive towards content sent to them, you remember the vids of the bread with the gecko? the rotten burger? etc. @kuwmun check them out.
Here is even a worse rant. I work on that street. What’s extremely funny is that this entire street has only 1 rubish bin and that’s on burgan bank (privately owned). I mean… SMH.