READER COMMENTS

The planning of the streets is very old since the appearance of the vehicles in Egypt. The number of the vices at that time was very little and the streets at that time were enough to accommodate the cars. In addition, the vehicles at that time were very ordinary and their size was small. In addition, the number of the Egyptians was no more than 20 million, while today, they have reached about 90 million. Therefore, how can the streets handle this huge amount of people who move every day? The people’s demands on the transportation services in the buses and metro exceed the capacity of these transportation means, which transport people every day without any stoppage. Of course, the people’s movement increase in transportation and travel during the different occasions, and they represent massive pressure on the transportation means such as buses, trains or metro. Hence, we can summarize the problem by saying that the streets in Egypt need to be wider to accommodate all these vehicles. We also should update the street planning and correct the direction of the streets in addition to increasing the number of the transportation means and buses to accommodate all those people.

We must have a look at the experiences of other countries in solving the problem of traffic congestion. In Brazil, for instance, the authorities have implemented a certain policy with a certain number of cars to drive in the cities in order to relieve traffic congestion. As for the Netherlands, it has reduced the price of train tickets by up to 40 percent during certain hours of the day and during holidays. The aim is to encourage the citizens to take the trains instead of their cars. In Britain, the Government allocated some lanes for private cars at rush hours. It has also reduced train tickets. In Japan, the municipality has adopted a project called “Tokyo Series”. The aim of this project is to avoid parking in places not reserved for parking. It has also organized national campaigns to prevent traffic jams caused by parking cars in the wrong place and in public roads.

Traffic and its organization are among the main issues which have a major impact on society and on work. It affects citizens’ comfort and the economic activity in general. Traffic congestion is a hamper for citizens depriving them of enjoying comfort. Indeed, it is a waste of time and energy.

Egypt does not have a good method for the functioning vehicle motions in it. This causes traffic crises that the citizens are facing. The number of cars and the problem of hustle are constantly increasing in Egypt. The government is not working on resolving it yet and that is the reason why we always find the citizens all over Egypt, especially in the capital Cairo, are suffering from the continuous traffic crises all year round. The system followed in Egypt is not good. The roads are very narrow and they barely fit two adjacent cars. This is because of the bad building plans. Supposedly, there should be a large distance between the residential buildings and the roads of the cars. The Department of Roads in Egypt manages to work on the necessary expansions in any time but due to the numerous residential buildings, it constitute an obstacle to those departments as they will have to remove those buildings to hold such expansions. This will require a lot of money and a lot of harm to the citizens living in those buildings. Therefore, the government has passed these orders in order not to cost the State large sums of money. The corruption in those departments is the major reason behind the continuity of the crises in the traffic which Egypt is suffering from until our present time. Also, the neglect has a major role due to the lack of following the standard specifications of those roads.

The Government must take interest in the other provinces, establish a number of State offices in them, develop them and their buildings so that their inhabitants will not leave them and go to the residential areas which are located next to the State offices. The Government also has to establish new metro lines that reach all the suburbs in order to facilitate traffic. Policemen must organize traffic and maintain the safety of citizens. In addition, the Government must find better public transport than the existing one in order to facilitate traffic so a lot of people will not use their private cars. We have also to expand streets and widen them in order to accommodate a larger number of cars. Thus, through implementing this plan, we should ask for the help of talented road engineers to get the appropriate plans to eradicate traffic congestion and to reduce the rate of accidents. The latter are caused by overcrowding and the lack of traffic organization that would maintain the safety of Egyptians and protect their lives.

There is a fundamental point that can explain the phenomenon of the traffic bottlenecks and the traffic congestion for some Egyptian drivers, which is that the traffic culture does not exist because of the diversity of educational tools and the strong differences between the educated and the others as well as their level of education. Therefore, traffic discipline is not common at all, so various traffic departments must carry out awareness campaigns for the drivers through the various media and the need of the drivers to adhere to the traffic rules governing the traffic movement. A lot of behaviors that occur by many vehicle drivers have a great role in contributing to the reduction of the phenomenon of congestion and the traffic jams in the areas that are near the capital.

Traffic congestion is one of the negative phenomena that characterize the streets and the significant increase in the number of cars as well as their easy purchase has led to more traffic complexity. The number of cars reached nearly four million in the streets of Egypt. This number of cars is too large for the population densities and the traffic congestion in Egypt, and is concentrated in the areas with high population density that have a small geographical area, like Cairo, for example, and Alexandria, where there is a very large number of vehicles. The problem is that, in the past, the streets were able to support only one direction which existed but now these streets and roads cannot accommodate the large increase in the number of people and vehicles. In addition, these streets and roads can cut through the residential areas and link the governorates like the Ring Road, for example. The breakdown and the cars negatively affect the traffic movement in these roads especially in the morning when the employees are going to work and in the evening when people are going to picnic and glades which have become familiar scenes in Egypt. The capital of Egypt, Cairo, has always been a place of controversy and disagreement about the many traffic jams experienced by its main and subsidiary streets, and too large traffic jams because of the ignorance of most engineers, citizens, and those who are interested in this concern are not paying attention to that.

The congestion and the traffic jams are a phenomenon experienced by all the regions of Egypt without exception; however, the areas near Cairo and Alexandria are suffering daily and greatly in the movement and traveling with cars because most of the government departments and sectors are located in the capital of Cairo. To resolve this issue, the government must create, for all the departments and the governmental sectors in Egypt, branches in the provinces. This is not supposed to serve the citizen quickly and bring the service near his home, but to reduce the traffic pressure on the roads of Cairo and Alexandria, and the areas close to them. All the States in the world have traffic problems, but what causes trouble in Egypt is the increasing accidents and the increasing number of deaths from them which are caused by the horrific accidents that occur among the young people in particular. The traffic accidents are the main reasons for the increase in the proportion of deaths in Egypt after the dangerous and chronic diseases. There is another problem which is the behavior of the drivers of the vehicles who are in need of a solution to improve through raising the awareness and the traffic knowledge.

We see that some roads are not suitable for traffic and are very narrow. All this is due to the bad planning of the cities contrary to what we see in modern cities. New cities include large organized roads. Work and trade places have a special area and so this is the case for residential areas. Thus, we cannot find congestion as is the case in Cairo. Congestion there never ends, it increases day and night. Till now, we have not found a solution to this problem. I propose some solutions, for instance banning trucks from entering the cities and making special roads for them. We must also establish checkpoints in all cities’ entries. Traffic signs are also missing and they are not observed by drivers. No one respects the signs because they are unavailable.

The large number of residents in Greater Cairo has also led to an overcrowding population which brought about traffic jam. In fact, some of these people leave their houses everyday in order to go to work, attend schools or State Departments leading to an inevitable congestion. Thus, in order to solve this problem, the country must gather its most competent and talented road engineers in order to deal with this problem and try to reorganize streets once again. This aims to make it easier for drivers or others to make their ways without traffic hurdles or problems of congestions.

Population in the Arab Republic of Egypt is increasing on a daily basis and nothing else changed to meet this density and population growth which will in turn lead to a traffic crisis. Population increase has led to the presence of a huge number of cars of various types and functions in the Egyptian street. Indeed, the Egyptian streets are no longer able to accommodate this huge number of vehicles. This is attributable to many reasons among which the bad planning of many cities, streets and roads. This is in addition to the stability of civil planning. Planning is the same and does not change to meet the changes affecting the population and the users. Every few years, the number of population increases to reach a certain level which hampers traffic. Thus, some changes related to streets planning should be made such as building bridges, developing large Egyptian areas and regions which are not exploited as if they were created just for watching.

There is a strange phenomenon that occupied many areas and countries and it is very illogical and irrigational. I mean how the population growth would be about to explode at any moment, while mouthing of the life affairs changes at the same rate to accommodate this aggressive population growth. The people fill the streets all day and night with their movement. They walk in the streets and this is natural. The current rate of the population growth may reach a moment when we would find no place to accommodate them especially if each one of them has a special car. How the roads would accommodate all this huge number of cars. As long as there is population explosion without similar development and expansions in the roads and streets, and transportation means, there would be thousands of the car accidents on the road because of the traffic congestion and the slow speed of the moment because of the presence of millions of cars in the streets. We have to put quick solutions to this crisis to avoid the negative influences, which would cause many accidents because of the inevitable traffic jams. This would also cause spread of the diseases because of the pollution in the air as well as the total stoppage of the industrial and production movement, which would eventually harm the citizen and the home.

There is a governmental plan that is being implemented by the Egyptian Authority of the Construction Planning. According to the plan, the governmental buildings and the ministries headquarters would be transferred outside Cairo according to a comprehensive plan that ensures that all the necessary services and housing to the employees are provided. There is also another plan to establish multistoried garage in many areas. Tahrir Garage would be no less than 20,000 square meter and the official plan was announced to replace the microbuses in the streets of Cairo through comprehensive modernization of all the public busses with the help of the public busses. This plan aims at operating 3000 busses at three stages. The officials also announced about radical solutions to the problems in Cairo governorate within the general plan that would end in 2050. However, the plan also includes a group of the quick solutions to these escalating problems in such a way that allows the authorities to deal with the crisis of the traffic congestion in the streets our beloved Egypt. In order to handle the causes of this crisis, we should provide good and quick public transportation means in the Greater Cairo in addition to connecting all the new cities. All the recent studies proved that the main cause of the problem of the traffic congestion is the negative lack of the public good and speedy transportation means. According to the studies, the microbus in the Egyptian streets is responsible for more than 50% of the public transportation I Cairo, while they follow no order and they work randomly.

The Government must take interest in the other provinces, establish a lot of State Departments in them, develop them and their buildings so that their inhabitants will not leave them and go to the residential areas which are located next to the State Departments. The Government has also to establish new metro lines that reach all the suburbs in order to facilitate traffic. Policemen must organize traffic and maintain the safety of citizens. In addition, the Government must find better public transport than the existent one in order to facilitate traffic if a lot of people will not use their private cars. We have also to expand streets and widen them in order to accommodate a larger number of cars. Thus, through implementing this plan, we should ask for the help of talented road engineers to get the appropriate plans to eradicate traffic congestions and to reduce the rate of accidents. The latter are caused by over crowdedness and the lack of traffic organization in a way that would maintain the safety of Egyptians and protect their lives.

The statistics of the traffic police refer to constant annual increase in the traffic jams and congestion, which is a phenomenon across all the Egyptian areas. However, the areas near Cairo and Alexandria suffer terribly on daily bases when moving with the cars because most of the administrations and government sectors in Egypt are located in the capital. To solve this problem, the government must establish a branch of all the admirations and governmental institutions in all governorates not only to offer good and quick services to the citizens near their residence, but also to alleviate the traffic congestion in Cairo and Alexandria and the neighboring areas. All countries of the world have traffic problems but the worrisome issue in Egypt is that the rate of the car accidents is increasing taking the number of the deaths with it as a result of the terrible traffic accidents, which may target the youth. The car accidents represent the main cause of death in Egypt following the dangerous and chronic diseases. There is another problem, which is the behavior of the drivers. Of course, we need to raise the traffic awareness and culture in addition to reforming the mistakes in the designs of the main roads and highways. The streets and roads that lead to Cairo and Alexandria as well as the neighboring states cannot handle more than three cars, despite the high demand and presser on these roads and streets, which become narrow (only two tracks) when you get closer to Cairo and Alexandria. Hence, the Egyptian government must solve these problems.

One of the causes of the traffic jam and congestion are numerous. Let us give an example to make things clear. The 26th of July Road starts at the entrance of the 6th of October as four tracks and then we see after about 1.5 km we see part of the Cairo-Alexandria desert road leading to this road and it brings huge number of cars causing congestion in this point. If we moved on, we would notice that there is another pig and difficult point coming from the regional road of the Great Cairo, which is used by all the vehicles that come from the governorates to enter the capital. This means that all the vehicles coming from Upper Egypt, canal cities, northern coast, and Delta use this road. Hence, the point that joins both roads causes extremely heavy congestion, in addition to the fact that the road becomes narrower from four tracks to two tracks. Hence, we suffer from the traffic jam in this area. To solve this problem, we need reconstruction of the road in a correct way in addition to performing periodic maintenance to these roads.

We find that the Egyptian government does not build anything but little cities that we may feel shy in the last decade and also for the most important reasons of the traffic crises; it is not using creative solutions in solving these problems. In the Cairo governorate, for example, that is considered as the greatest landmark in the Arab Republic of Egypt and is considered one of the most crowded cities in the world. God gave us the grace of the River Nile that passes through the middle of Cairo in vast areas; it is then possible to be used in solving these traffic crises by using river taxi which is considered the simplest and the finest, practical solutions and also entertaining. We hope in this new era that we live after the events of the twenty fifth of January that the Egyptian government and the new Egyptian president especially with these traffic crises will be able to solve it by reconstructing the roads, planning and using creative solutions to solve this problem that is considered one of the most important crises that should be treated quickly because of its bad influence on the Egyptian citizen.

There is no doubt that the building of bridges, paths and new means of transport will cost high expenses which we cannot at the present time and in our current status afford, But what if we could control our Egyptian resources? For example, we have immense oil wealth which we do not benefit from in any way, either by exporting it due to bad laws, inappropriate prices, and refusing to retreat from or modify such export errors. If the oil wealth of Egypt is used properly it will have great positive effects on the financial resources which will lead to the possibility of building whatever Egypt needs of bridges or new roads or new ways of transportation. Then life will become much easier for all Egyptian citizens. Also the good and wise use and being conscious in all fields, Egypt will be able to provide huge financial resources that it will use to solve all its crises and problems. There are some problems which have negative indirect effects over all fields of life, like traffic jams which negatively affect the industrial and production fields, as traffic jams lead to slow merchandise transport from and to warehouses and sale outlets. Also the pollution caused by crowding leads to dangerous diseases spreading more quickly than in previous times, in addition to the psychological factor which is stronger and important, which affects directly all fields, so traffic jams create a very bad psychological state for all citizens and make them lose the ability to focus or to love work or to love life in Egypt.

Traffic congestion on the streets of Egypt – which reached sometimes to the true meaning of the word "crisis - is due to rush hours which may lead to totally paralyzed traffic and total malfunction of businesses and interests in which the time factor is its most important element of success. It’s a general rule that all developed and third world countries apply which is however much the excess population grows, it doesn’t affect any other factors, which is awfully wrong regarding streets, squares, and available transportation. How can the already occupied street handle more population to come which might multiply several times, and that is how it has been for a long time. It’s logical that as the Egyptian population increases, the environment and conditions will develop along with it to suit the life, whether transportation, roads, power lines, or water lines. There are several suggested solutions that can avoid the bad affects of the population congestion which led to tough traffic congestion. These factors are; building bridges which provide enough space for more transportation which generates huge flexibility in transportation movement.

The traffic crises are a global problem. Yes, there is no doubt about it. However, every country makes private efforts that require providing the necessary means until it can afford the cost of those devices and the extent of the development of the civilization that it has reached when seeking to overcome that problem. After having found the solution to overcome these crises and not limiting itself to one specific solution, there must be a provision of many solutions deal with these traffic crises. Also, among the global solutions is constructing circular highways, subways, and examined bridges, passing and applying the traffic laws that strictly organize the traffic and not violating them, punishing anyone who contravenes the basic laws, and not allowing any license for old cars in order to avoid their failures on the road which can increase the disability and the paralysis in the traffic.

The main reason of the problem is the lack of abilities and the partial solutions that harm more than any policies or decisions that made the public transpiration sector in Egypt (the public bus and metro) a very chaotic system that lack coordination in addition to the absence of the use of mind and abilities, which can help in solving the problem. The main cause of this problem is the neglect of the available network and its bad conditions as well as using many areas as night garages, let alone the violation regarding occupation of the pavements, sidewalks, and even parts of the streets on part of the shops and hawkers. Hence, the passersby find that they have to walk in the road. The causes also include the lack of discipline in the behavior of the Egyptians starting from the drivers of the public transportation vehicles and ending with the passersby in the streets and the co-called mini-taxi (Tok-Tok), which violates all traffic rules in addition to the decline of the awareness of the Egyptians about the dimensions of the real problem. Hence, the solution lies in the correct restructure of the authority of public transportation and paying attention to the suitable collective transportation means. The drivers should be aware of the traffic rules and they must comply with them. the drivers must also respect the road and this should coincided with the good treatment on part of the traffic officers to the citizens and adopting strict procedures regarding granting driving licenses to improve the technical skills of the drivers and their commitment of the traffic rules.

One of the most important traffic problems in Egypt is that there are no emergency lanes to stand in the highways and the solutions for that or the solution to the traffic problem in Egypt, in summary, is limited in the Ministry of the Roads and Bridges putting a trusted person in charge of the pavements. And he should do what the Japanese do. And then, the traffic problem will be resolved and the crises of traffic congestion and the terrible overcrowding of the cars will end.

The problem of the TukTuk is that it is largely spread, increasing the crowd that Shoubra in Cairo is famous for, where its small size and the ones who drive it are mostly young people and fast drivers. Besides, they drive in a random way that makes them walking in the reverse way and puts their lives and lives of others in danger. This issue must be dealt with firmly, particularly the spread of this phenomenon significantly, not in the random crowded places that need these means of transport only, but it also extends into the cities where the means of transport are easily provided and there is no congestion and much population, like in the New Damietta, in addition to the random popular markets and the street hawkers in crowded area roads and others in the clear absence of policemen and traffic. And these are the biggest problems along with the problem of the collapse of the infrastructure in Egypt and its numerous pictures and signs. Between the streets and the roads flooding whenever bad weather happens as a result of the disappearance of rain barriers or the repetition of incidents and frequent casualties, the widespread corruption and delinquency during the process of construction of the roads in Egypt led to the emergence of such defects; where the contractors resorted to cheating in the thickness of the road’s foundations or the materials used, in the absence of supervision and the spread of corruption in the local and government bodies.

The traffic points must be reexamined periodically so that identifying the bottlenecks and addressing them ensures a smooth traffic movement. The efficiency of the traffic policemen, as well as reducing the number of the checkpoints and taking care of the roads and streets by increasing their length, width, and improving and maintaining them, and thus ensuring their quality, will contribute to accommodating large numbers of vehicles, reducing the traffic congestion and building multi-story garages for the parking of the vehicles especially in the densely populated areas, markets and the regulation of the parking lots, and the car accommodation.

Planning and intelligent decisions must be taken and the promotion of collective transport must be carried out to limit the use of private vehicles in order to control traffic and to adopt intelligent transportation systems as well as traffic signals and electronic boards to determine the shortest path and to use the GPS. Also, the use of the remote sensing system for unblocking traffic jams and searching for the alternative transportation means such as resorting to the continuous adoption of a flexible system or the distribution of the peak hours, as well as an even or odd number system, and promoting the principle of participation in the movement using private transportation means like the staff who share one vehicle in going to work.

The advancement of this country requires the service of all its loyal sons so that Egypt will restore its great former position not only among Arab or African countries but also the international ones. In fact, Egypt does not need anyone to show its former importance given that it is a leading country in all fields in the world, from which all the civilizations on earth have emanated. Indeed, Egypt is the oldest civilization in the history of humanity which dates back to more than seven thousand years.

To solve the problem of traffic jams, it is required to build bridges at the hands of top experts to ensure their durability and quality. It is all right to import expertise to assist in resolving such crisis, and even work on the development of experiences and apply them on the ground. The defect is to blindly imitate and not to develop what has already been devised for the best and finest. One of the most effective solutions to these problems is the exploitation of non-durable and non-equipped routes leading to the required places. If they take a longer time, it will not be longer than standing and waiting in the traffic jam. For example, there are vast areas in our beloved Egypt that are untapped and non-durable; if these areas will be well managed and well prepared, this achievement will have a great impact on all the problems of traffic congestion and population density, which appear in the problem of reconstruction and housing. There is no doubt that all of the above proposals need help in material resources. We possibly lack these resources at the moment, but here comes the role of the union of the Arab countries for a better life. If the Arab countries do not cooperate in resolving the crises with each other, so when will be the date to do that? Many of the feasible routes can help solve many crises of the whole of Arabia, but need the cooperation, assistance and expertise of correct and specialized professionals in the required field. A country such as Dubai is really the Paris of the Arabs, marked by its officials that planned it, and their planning was well done.

With regard to the bridges and the tunnels, Egypt has many of them but they are only in particular places, not in all places, which causes traffic problems. then, we come to the role of the traffic officers, whose deficiency causes utter chaos. Egypt has few modern traffic signs, which means that if the traffic officer did not observe his work well and present himself in the workplace, there would be traffic jam as we all see while going to work. We all notice that most of the traffic crises take place due to the absence of the traffic officers in their locations. In addition, the citizens cause chaos in the traffic because they do not drive well and disrespect the traffic rules.