New 80km Road in Dubai: Route, Location & Latest Updates

The Dubai government has given the green light for a new 80km motorway that links the Emirate to Sharjah and Abu Dhabi as part of a major effort to ease traffic jams. The officials have given it the name the Fourth Corridor, and it will be the fourth strategic road link between the emirates.

It was officially announced in mid-September 2026, and the project will be built in two stages. This guide details the route, provides the complete project requirements, the two construction stages, and what the new corridor may offer to buyers of property along the way.

What Is the Fourth Corridor?

The Fourth Corridor will be a 80 km stretch linking Al Faya Road in Abu Dhabi to Al Shanouf Road in Sharjah, via Dubai. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, officially announced the project's approval. It is the fourth major road linking Emirates after Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Ittihad Road, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road and Emirates Road. Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai is delivering the project.

Unlike the other three routes, the Fourth Corridor is more inland and nearer to Dubai's growth areas. The majority of commuters heading along the Dubai coastline travel along Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Ittihad Road, leading to Downtown Dubai and Dubai Marina. Inland traffic also heads west along Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road and Emirates Road, leading to communities like Jumeirah Village Circle and Dubai Investment Park. The new corridor is not a replacement for the three, but an addition that is designed specifically to divert through traffic and freight from the three.

Positioning the Fourth Corridor this way means it complements rather than competes with the existing network, giving drivers and freight operators an additional route option during peak periods.

Project Specifications at a Glance

The entire 80km corridor is designed in a single fashion for both phases. It will have 12 lanes, 6 lanes in each direction and a capacity of up to 24,000 vehicles per hour. This route will have 72 bridges, 17 tunnels and 45 stormwater drainage culverts constructed. When completed, the corridor will be used by up to 3.1 million passengers in the three emirates it will serve, in addition to the local population.

Phase 1: Al Shanouf Road to Dubai–Al Ain Road

Phase 1 covers roughly 30km, running from Al Shanouf Road in Sharjah to Dubai–Al Ain Road. Its cost is approximately AED 3.5 billion or approximately US $953 million. This stage is expected to reduce the travel time from 35 minutes to 14 minutes (60 per cent) and cater to approximately 600,000 people.

Al Ain Road will be expanded from three to four lanes in each direction from Emirates Road to Lehbab Road, and 4 key intersections will be upgraded on the road.

Phase 2: Dubai–Al Ain Road to Al Faya Road

Phase 2 will be the extension of the corridor further along, from Dubai–Al Ain Road to Al Faya Road in Abu Dhabi, for a distance of 50km. The design and the capacity of 24,000 vehicles per hour are the same as Phase 1. As per the figures, this section is expected to reduce the travel time by 52 per cent, from 50 minutes to 24 minutes.

It has scope equivalent to about 190 lane-kilometres of at-grade roads, 3.5km of tunnels and 157km of bridges and ramps, and is the bigger of the two phases. The two phases, combined, will total approximately 6km of tunnelling through the entire corridor.

Why Dubai Is Building a Fourth Corridor

The Fourth Corridor exists to solve a specific problem. The three inter-emirate routes of Dubai are already much busier during the day and are subject to increased annual traffic due to the increasing population. The new corridor is supposed to divert through traffic, especially heavy truck traffic, from the urban and residential regions.

This should help alleviate congestion on Sheikh Zayed Road and Emirates Road, which are today significant stretches of congestion for freight vehicles. The project also aligns with Dubai's Social Agenda 33 and Economic Agenda D33, which have targets for infrastructure and long-term growth throughout the Emirate.

Key Landmarks and Areas Along the Route

A number of special places and development areas are located along the way. It is situated near Al Maktoum International Airport, expected to expand significantly as Dubai's main long-term aviation centre in the next 10 years. The corridor is also linked to the Etihad Rail route, facilitating the integration of road and rail freight transport systems in the wider UAE.

On the way, the road passes by two similarly protected natural areas, namely the Al Marmoom and Al Wohoosh desert conservation reserves, located on Dubai's southern outskirts, that will remain undamaged by the surrounding development.

What This Means for Property Buyers and Investors

This is a new corridor of this scale, which changes buyers' perception of the communities through which it flows. Greater access to Al Maktoum International Airport helps to increase its popularity, with the airport set to expand in the coming years. The enlarged roads and improved intersections will benefit the communities along the Al Ain Road corridor, which include Dubailand and Damac Hills. The corridor is also expected to drive faster freight transport along the route and improve the airport and Etihad Rail line's logistics ecosystem near the airport, which underpins the broader commercial and industrial market in the south of Dubai.

Those who are considering villas or plots in these inland locations typically compare space and costs against coastal proximity. That gap is bridged by a faster, wider link to both Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, with commute times to both neighbouring emirates becoming more competitive than the coastal alternatives. While it's premature to link price changes to these areas, given that construction has just received approval, there's no question that the ease of access will be a consideration for many buyers comparing an inland community to a coastal community in the coming years.

Timeline: When Will It Be Ready?

Although it was announced at such a massive scale, RTA has not announced a public completion date for the entire 80km corridor. The construction is to be undertaken in two stages as described above, with each stage having its own time frame as construction progresses.

The travel-time reductions quoted throughout this guide describe the expected outcome once each phase opens, not current driving conditions. These figures should be treated as targets to aim for and not as changes that are imminent. The RTA should be followed as construction progresses to get updates on the project. In Dubai, such big projects have a history of going from approval to opening in about two years, although the timeline here will be dependent on the order of the two phases.

Closing In

Dubai's Fourth Corridor is more about the transformation of the road network's structure than about the solution to current traffic issues. The two-phase approach spreads a genuinely large project across a more manageable construction timeline. For anyone watching the city's inland growth areas, this is a project worth tracking as each phase moves from approval toward completion in the years ahead.

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