Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Trying to fly

		1 - 7 August 2002 Issue No. 597 Home news	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Trying to fly
Yet another bridge is in the works -- an extension connecting the 15 May and 6 October flyovers. But does this mean, wonders Gihan Shahine, that Cairo's traffic problems are any closer to being solved?

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The new connector bridge is nearly complete. Above: a view of the connector's on- ramp from the 6 October Bridge above the intersection of Al-Galaa and 26 July Streets downtown. Left: workers put the final touches on while braving this week's heat wave
photos Khaled El-Fiqi
Driving in downtown Cairo is, at best, an unpleasant prospect. When there's major construction going on, the experience tends to become disastrous. This has been the case for the past 18 months around one of downtown's most crowded areas, where construction on a project to extend the 26 July highway has been taking place.
Scheduled to open to traffic any day now, the new 1.5km bridge is a one-way connector between the 6 October and 15 May flyovers. It will allow commuters to travel from Heliopolis or Nasr City all the way to the Alexandria Desert Road without having to suffer through the congested streets of central Cairo. This, according to official estimates, should cut in half what was at least a 40- minute trip during peak hours.
Because it will also give those on 6 October Bridge who are heading to Mohandessin an alternate route, officials say the LE50 million project will ultimately streamline traffic in the city centre, diverting more than 30 per cent of the traffic on 6 October as it crosses the Nile towards Zamalek and Doqqi.
"The project is a great achievement," Housing Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman boasted to the press. "It was the culmination of 18 months of planning which took into consideration ambitious future plans for a subway line that will run underneath it."
Of course, those 18 months also caused some of the worst traffic downtown has ever seen. For those who used the already congested Al-Galaa and 26 July Streets -- both major downtown arteries -- the buzzing drills and huge cranes that are the trademark of construction sites became a daily eyesore. Several lanes on Al-Galaa Street were closed off, and 26 July Street from the Nile corniche to Al-Galaa became one way, as did a number of other side streets.
The chaotic -- and constantly being adjusted -- traffic pattern put motorists' nerves to a constant test. Journeys that were already plagued by congestion took even longer due to convoluted diversions down narrow side streets -- which could easily become clogged by just a single truck.
Those looking for parking in the area were also left to deal with a real-life maze. The scarcity of spaces actually inspired many downtown employees to abandon their cars for public buses and rail. Pedestrians also had their share of woes, bogged down in an ever- fiercer battle for space with the bumper-to- bumper vehicles.
If there was a ray of hope, it might have been in the street signs that proudly indicated how many days were left before the new bridge would be complete. A new PR gimmick courtesy of the traffic authorities, the signs inspired many a commuter to wonder whether the timetable was accurate.
The answer to that question, as it turns out, is yes, and no one is more thrilled about that fact than the Arab Contractors, the construction behemoth which implemented the project from start to finish. According to Ikram Fouad, the company's engineer in charge of the project, "one major challenge was dealing with the decaying subterranean infrastructure -- water pipes, sewage, electricity and telephone networks -- in one of the oldest and most congested areas in town, which is also home to a bustling market." Fouad maintains that "because we wanted life to flow as normally as possible in the area, it took us double the originally estimated time."
2000 engineers and labourers took part in the job, which did hit a technical snag as the work drew to a close. It turned out that one of the cement pillars built on Al-Galaa Street, in front of the Al-Ahram building, proved too low for trucks and buses to pass underneath.
"This is no problem at all," says Fouad. The solution was to bring down the level of the street by about 60 centimetres. According to Fouad, "the street was already above its original height due to repeated paving and we will merely be returning it to its normal level. Besides, [when it came to the cement pillar] we had to retain the same height of the original 6 October flyover while building the new extension."
That particular problem will ultimately be solved, it seems, but urban planners, as usual, are already waxing critical about the project as a whole. Many argue for instance, that the new flyover will ultimately compound the gridlock at Lebanon Square in Mohandessin,
"The new extension may ease traffic in one area, but will probably wreak havoc in another, as is always the case with such projects," said urban planner Abdallah Abdel- Aziz. "In the absence of a comprehensive master plan for Greater Cairo, the government always offers piecemeal solutions -- a fatally flawed system that only compounds traffic problems."
Abdel-Aziz's views are not unfounded. The government has poured LE37 billion into building infrastructure over the past decade -- half of which went into the road network -- with the ultimate hope of relieving traffic congestion downtown. And yet traffic seems to go from bad to worse.
Official traffic planners tend to perceive traffic congestion as the inevitable outcome of rapid population growth and an ever- increasing number of cars. Greater Cairo (Cairo, Giza and Qalyoubia) is inhabited by 16 million people; its roads are unable to cope with the 1.5-2 million vehicles driving along them.
But in this, Cairo is not alone. Traffic problems have grown into a global epidemic stumping experts everywhere. A case in point can be found in the latest draft of the Regional Transportation Plan of the Southern California Association of Governments. The draft says that "the future transportation system will be overwhelmed" and that, by the year 2020, 70 per cent of the current freeway network will be "extremely congested".
Abdel-Aziz, however, insists there is a way out. "The global trend," he suggests, "is to go underground, building tunnels and subway networks that would relieve surface traffic and reduce sound and air pollution." Flyovers, he argues, are an eye-sore and tend to violate the privacy of those who suddenly find themselves mere metres away from a bridge.
According to Abdel Aziz, "it is high time the government thinks about producing a well-researched plan to replace flyovers with a network of tunnels over the coming 100 years."
And though this may sound economically and technically unfeasible, Abdel-Aziz is undaunted: "Modern technology has made tunnels less expensive and, in any case, people's welfare should always be a priority in any government policy."
Fouad Awwad, head of Cairo Governorate's Road Authority, says he has suggested plans to build tunnels that are currently being considered by Cairo Governor Abdel-Rehim Shehata. "It's true that tunnels are better than flyovers, but they are not always economically feasible," maintains Awwad. "There are many cases in which the relocation of infrastructure, especially in old downtown areas, would double and triple the costs of construction work."
Fouad, of the Arab Contractors, agrees. "Tunneling is feasible for new areas, like Nasr City, but in Cairo's old city centre we are left with very few choices," he told the Weekly. "In the city centre, our plans are always built on the already-existing road landscapes and decaying infrastructure for which maps are not even available. That is actually why many government projects are perceived as piecemeal solutions to traffic problems."
Both Awwad and Fouad deny that there has been an absence of master planning. "Plans for the 26 July extension date back to 1982, but the project was not launched due to a shortage of funds," argues Fouad. "The entire 26 July highway project is, no doubt, a great achievement, for it has saved those heading for Alexandria the suffering of having to pass through the highly congested area of Al- Haram in Giza."
Although Awwad concedes that flyovers generally tend to attract more traffic that may cause jams in other areas, he insists that "such predictions are always accounted for and, in case they prove true, simple solutions exist." Those solutions may include making certain side streets one-way, or increasing the distance between u-turns. "But, in any case," adds Awwad, "urban planning is not everything: it should go hand in hand with traffic planning and the proper enforcement of traffic laws."
In the meantime, Awwad is busy trying to facelift the part of 26 July Street that runs underneath the new connector bridge. The plastic surgery includes re-paving streets, building and tiling the sidewalks, erecting lampposts and providing parking areas for the aging thoroughfare -- which, by the way, has finally gone back to being a two-way street again.

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