Frequent travelers to Bahrain via the King Fahd Causeway are familiar with the test of patience the journey lays before them, often having to endure more than two hours to traverse a distance of only 25 kilometers. Work, however, is continuing apace to address the problem and expand the facility for those traveling in both directions. The Causeway authority (KFCA) recently began expansion works costing over SR62.5 million, with a short-term expansion also under way. “The short-term project, costing SR14.8m, started earlier this month on the Saudi side of the Causeway,” said KFCA chairman and director general of Saudi Customs Saleh Al-Khilawi. “It will be completed in five months.” “All the expansion works will be finished in five years and will increase the Causeway's vehicle capacity by more than 350 percent,” Al-Khilawi continued. “The capacity of cargo areas will go up by 200 percent.” There will also be a 70 percent increase in intake capacity at procedure zones on both sides of the facility, with other measures introduced to reduce congestion and improve procedural efficiency. The main aim of the expansion is to cope with the increase in numbers of travelers between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in recent years, an increase visible in the number of Saudis who head for Bahrain for tourist purposes. Most Saudi families are attracted by Bahrain's open-air recreation centers, shopping malls and movie theaters, while young Saudis – who constitute the majority of Saudi travelers to Bahrain – head for what may be euphemistically described as the underbelly of Bahrain, where they are hosted by around 200 hotels from evening to dawn. For families, Al-Saif Center is one of the most popular destinations. “I bring my family here almost every week. We watch a movie, go shopping, have dinner and get back home before midnight,” said Ahmad Ali. “We spend in total probably no more than SR2,000 per trip.” Yet Saudis in Bahrain are not all tourists, indeed there are hundreds of Saudi students enrolled in its universities and educational institutes. Most of them cross the Causeway every day, while some prefer to have a place of residence in Bahrain and visit home at the weekend. Others go to Bahrain for their own personal reasons. One Saudi woman, who did not want her name revealed, said she went to Bahrain as often as possible just to drive. Saudi Arabia, in turn, welcomes thousands of Bahrainis every day, most of whom spend their time in shopping malls where commodities from vegetables to furniture are considerably cheaper than across the Causeway The idea of linking Bahrain to the Kingdom originated in 1965 from Bahrain's Emir at the time, Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifah, while on a visit to the Eastern Province. King Faisal subsequently ordered a feasibility study and construction work officially began on Sept. 29, 1981. The causeway was opened to traffic on Nov. 26, 1986 after costing SR3 billion to build, and is the longest in the Middle East.
