THE nation's highways are the arteries connecting governorates with each other; they have also encouraged a lot of young people to move from the countryside to the capital in search of work, because jobs are scarce in the countryside, putting more pressure on Cairo. But commuting in and out of Benha town in Qalubia Governorate to Cairo by road has become a dailynightmare, especially on Thursdays, because thousands of motorists use the highway. There is also a lot of trouble on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, with inhuman scrambles as people fight each other to get a seat in the shared taxis going to Cairo and Alexandria. The problem is that there aren't enough of them. If people want to travel crosscountry in the Delta by car, they often get stuck in a 3km or 4km long traffic jam. It only takes a minor accident, a car to break down or a Traffic Police blitz to cause an enormous traffic jam. Speed bumps too are often to blame. A journey that should take one hour might take three hours or more because of these sleeping policemen. Before Eid el-Adha (Greater Bairam) vacation late last year, two traffic accidents occurred in a village near Benha in el-Qaliubia Governorate, killing three people. Angry citizens in the village called on officials to urgently build a footbridge or a tunnel for pedestrians in the village, to make the road safer. The Roads and Bridges Authority had constructed 35 speed bumps on the road causing huge traffic jams. Hazem Imam Ali, a microbus driver, says that there are too many sleeping policemen on the Benha Highway, which is constantly clogged by lorries. Another problem is the maintenance work done during the day, instead of at night. He would like to see officials allocate specific times for lorries to use this main road. But traffic jams aren't the only problem. An unnamed taxi driver told Al-Allam Al-Youm newspaper that getting a license to work on the Cairo-Alexandria Agricultural Road is like trying to get a visa to the United States or Italy! “A license costs LE70,000 [nearly $13,000],” he claimed. An officer in Benha Traffic Police, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that a lot of the speed bumps have been removed in the villages near Benha, while a number of footbridges have been built and more are under construction. He denies that a taxi license costs LE70,000. Meanwhile, an engineer in the Roads and Bridges Authority complains that many villagers don't use the footbridges, preferring to risk their lives walking across this hectic highway.
