Asian Traffick Expert
Understand that Cairo is home to over 18 million people. nearly 5 million come and go daily for work. close to 20, 000 arrive monthly in hope of staying.
It is crowded. It is big. It is loud. It is polluted. It is unrelenting. But, it is Cairo. And there is no place like it.
That being said, you can only imagine the traffick. Yes, a portion of people move underground. But the vast majority are on top of the tarmac - pedestrians, bicycles, donkey, horses, carts, carriages, cars, minibuses, lorries, buses - everything imaginable except streetcars. This, operating on an ancient system of underways, overpasses, bridges, winding alleys, backstreets, promenades, thoroughfares, avenues, roads, and dirt paths.
Imagine standing on the balcony of a third floor apartment building. You are looking down at a roundabout that gives out to 6 or 7 different directions. Now imagine a statue in the middle of the round about. See each vehicle speeding in, through and out of the round about, on either side of the statue, darting to any given street with no apparent regard for clockwise or counter-clockerwise motion, left or right direction, slow, moderated or fast speed. Apparent chaos.
Realising that this was likely going to get worse with time, Cairene officials invited the best of the best urban planners and traffick specialists from Asia. Please, tell us how to improve this situation, they pleaded.
So the Asians spent months in Cairo: observing, tabulating, monitoring, analysing, computing... In they end they reported back to their employers: "Just let it be. We have no idea how it works. But it does. So just let it be."
It is crowded. It is big. It is loud. It is polluted. It is unrelenting. But, it is Cairo. And there is no place like it.
That being said, you can only imagine the traffick. Yes, a portion of people move underground. But the vast majority are on top of the tarmac - pedestrians, bicycles, donkey, horses, carts, carriages, cars, minibuses, lorries, buses - everything imaginable except streetcars. This, operating on an ancient system of underways, overpasses, bridges, winding alleys, backstreets, promenades, thoroughfares, avenues, roads, and dirt paths.
Imagine standing on the balcony of a third floor apartment building. You are looking down at a roundabout that gives out to 6 or 7 different directions. Now imagine a statue in the middle of the round about. See each vehicle speeding in, through and out of the round about, on either side of the statue, darting to any given street with no apparent regard for clockwise or counter-clockerwise motion, left or right direction, slow, moderated or fast speed. Apparent chaos.
Realising that this was likely going to get worse with time, Cairene officials invited the best of the best urban planners and traffick specialists from Asia. Please, tell us how to improve this situation, they pleaded.
So the Asians spent months in Cairo: observing, tabulating, monitoring, analysing, computing... In they end they reported back to their employers: "Just let it be. We have no idea how it works. But it does. So just let it be."
posted by mg nightingale at 9:55 AM
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