Not everybody is pleased with the major new traffic improvement project currently underway in Heliopolis. Gihan Shahine reports Since March, a major section of one of Cairo's main thoroughfares has been the scene of a mega traffic improvement project. The area between Heliopolis's Al-Orouba/Salah Salem Street's intersections with the districts of Korba and Nasr City have been even more crowded than they usually are, as bumper-to-bumper vehicles engage in a fierce battle for space with buzzing drills and huge cranes. The project -- which includes the construction of two tunnels and two flyovers at a total cost of LE150 million -- is meant to streamline traffic in both Heliopolis and Nasr City. Its primary aim is to make sure that the area's main arteries -- Salah Salem and Al-Thawra Streets -- do not have intersections that hinder traffic flow. The construction of a third flyover, connecting the Autostrad with Cairo International Airport, is also underway. "Salah Salem and Al-Thawra Streets are of paramount importance because they carry all the traffic coming into the city from Cairo Airport, including the country's most important visitors -- tourists, presidents and diplomats," explained Fouad Awwad, head of Cairo Governorate's Road Authority. "So, based on the subterranean infrastructure in the area, we decided to streamline the traffic on these two main arteries by building either tunnels or flyovers." When the project is completed, Awwad said, all intersections on Al-Thawra Street -- which begins in Korba and ends at the Cairo-Suez/Autostrad highway -- will be gone. Instead of the current Al-Thawra/Al- Orouba intersection, commuters will travel through a 400-metre tunnel underneath Al- Orouba. At Al-Thawra's intersections with Al-Merghani and Nozha Streets, traffic will flow beneath two new flyovers, each 1.3 kilometres long. Meanwhile, on Al-Orouba-Salah Salem Street, a 1.2 kilometre-long tunnel will also eliminate that thoroughfare's intersections with both Al-Tayaran and Youssef Abbas Streets, both of which lead to Nasr City. Those coming from Al-Tayaran will be able to use the new tunnel to get onto Salah Salem, while those on Salah Salem will be able to exit from the tunnel onto Youssef Abbas. Those heading to the airport from the Autostrad will also no longer have to use Al-Orouba once a new .5 kilometre-long bridge connecting that highway directly to Cairo International is complete. "We are working round the clock to finish the work," Salah El-Iraqi of Arab Contractors told Al-Ahram Weekly. El-Iraqi's firm is in charge of the construction of the Al-Orouba and Al-Thawra tunnels. "We have at least 500-700 workers on site, with an additional 150 people working on the Al-Thawra tunnel," El-Iraqi said. Arab Contractors are one of three major construction companies (the other two are Hassan Allam and Mokhtar Ibrahim) taking part in the project, which is supervised by the Cairo Governorate. Construction is due to be completed by October 2003. Urban planners spoken to by the Weekly are not very enthusiastic about the project. Many argue, for example, that the flyovers will ultimately compound traffic problems in nearby areas like Roxy and Al-Saba' 'Emarat Square. According to urban planner Sherif Kamel, "the new road network may ease traffic in one area, but it will probably wreak havoc in another, as is always the case with such projects," which Kamel described as "no more than peace- meal solutions -- a sedative rather than a cure". Kamel said the real "cure" involves driving traffic out of Cairo altogether, which "requires moving office buildings, job opportunities, shopping malls and urban activities to the capital's new suburbs and satellite cities". Public transportation must also be upgraded, in order to curb the constant increase in the number of cars on the road. "Otherwise," Kamel warned, "we will fall into a vicious cycle of pouring more and more money into increasing layers of bridges and tunnels, while traffic will only get worse." Over the past decade, the government has already poured LE37 billion into infrastructure construction -- almost half of which went into the roads network with a goal towards relieving the city's chronic traffic congestion. Traffic, nonetheless, has seemingly gone from bad to worse, as roads remain unable to cope with the 1.5-2 million vehicles using them. Cairo Governorate's Awwad dismissed claims that the new projects would wreak havoc on nearby areas. "The project was the result of both thorough research as well as the combined efforts of all the concerned authorities: the Ministry of Housing, the Traffic Authority and the Cairo Governorate," he said. "Most of the roads surrounding the project already have the capacity to accommodate far more than the current number of vehicles using them. Meanwhile, other thoroughfares have been widened and upgraded to serve the expected increase in traffic. I would safely say that the new projects will relieve traffic in the area for at least the next decade." And then? "Then we will think of other solutions to accommodate the ever- increasing number of cars," Awwad said. Urban planners think that kind of planning is shortsighted at best. Many called the money being spent on building more road networks "a waste of public funds". Some even went so far as to call the latest project "extravagant". According to veteran urban planner Milad Hanna, "traffic already flowed well on Al-Orouba Street." Hanna's view is that this project was devised merely as a means to "create employment and liquidity in the current stagnant market. Instead of pouring millions into a project that serves an upper-class district, priority should have been given to more beneficial projects in more needy areas. The money could have been used to curb the death toll on dangerous roads, or to improve the living standards of a larger number of poor and limited-income people." Hanna's opinion is that "if the rich want improvements, they should contribute to the bottom line." Actually, Al-Merghani Street residents do feel they are already paying "a heavy price". Long-time Al- Merghani resident Ezzeddin Riyad, a retired general, said he woke up one day to find parking on the street in front of his building banned, and the metro line that had always been there suddenly removed. "We are living in hell," he complained. "The noise and dust pollution are unbearable, and parking has become, at best, a disastrous prospect. We wake up to find our cars towed away and the street turned into a jungle of cement and cranes." Many Al-Merghani residents don't think their suffering will end when the construction is done. "The flyover [being planned for the street] will have to be wide to accommodate the metro line," complained businessman Kamaleddin Taher, "which probably means it will end up being very close to our balconies. Besides being an eyesore, the bridge will also be a source of air and noise pollution and will violate the privacy of all the adjacent buildings. Moreover, the two new bridges will definitely create traffic jams, since they will both end in almost the same area." Many residents have submitted complaints to the authorities about the bridge, arguing that it will ruin what is considered one of the most beautiful boulevards in Heliopolis. Taher said the whole problem could have been avoided had the tunnel planned for Al-Thawra Street been extended to Al-Merghani -- a mere "100 metres more". Taher said he had "sent letters with the suggestion to all the concerned officials, but they all gave me a deaf ear." Both Awwad and El-Iraqi told the Weekly that the Al-Merghani flyover was planned when it was found "technically unfeasible to build a tunnel in the area, because subterranean infrastructure could not be relocated." According to El-Iraqi, "the Al-Thawra tunnel reached Al-Merghani Street in the original plans, but then we found it impossible to relocate the massive telephone network located in the area, because it would have also cost a fortune." Besides, added Awwad, "Al-Merghani is such a wide boulevard that the flyover could never get too close to balconies." Taher is hardly convinced: "The company in charge managed to relocate even more difficult subterranean infrastructure when building the underground metro, and it would not cost them more than what it costs to build such a massive bridge anyway."
