If there is one transport that is popular in Egypt, it is the metro! In Cairo, the capital, it is the RATP, the French metro authority, which will build the new underground line. This enlargement ...

Getting around Cairo, the Egyptian plague

Audio 02:32

Traffic jams in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, in 2018 © AP - Nariman El-Mofty

By: Marina Mielczarek

8 mins

If there is one transport that is popular in Egypt, it is the metro!

In Cairo, the capital, it is the RATP, the French metro authority, which will build the new underground line.

This expansion of the Cairo metro is wanted by the government, which is moving its capital!

Located 50 km from Cairo, this new city, called Cairo-new-city, will relieve Cairo of its traffic jams and suffocating traffic.

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We have been warned.

To understand transport in Egypt especially, avoid thinking like a European.

All the Cairenes have told us, in Cairo, you see people getting off their bus, their car, their taxi to… continue on foot!

Average speed of circulation in Cairo, 10km / h

However, and this would be the Egyptian touch, between resignation, habit but above all state of mind in the face of problems, everyone keeps more or less his calm and ends up arriving.

Agnès Debiage knows the capital by heart.

She lived there for 26 years.

Tourist surveyor for the Guides du Routard, she has just published the Guide du Routard

Egypt 2021

It's true, she said, the metro is a treasure for the whole population: “

Cairo is a terrifying capital,

” she explains.

.
Nothing comparable with Paris!
The city is gigantic.
Paris covers 105 km 2, Cairo over 3000 km 2. By 2030, there will be 25 million inhabitants.
The capital is cut in two by the Nile river.
By car, the only solutions to get from one bank to the other are the few bridges.
The traffic jams are gigantic.
So this metro is magical, all Cairenes use it.
It allows you to cross the city from north to south in half an hour compared to 3 times more per car!

She enthuses.

Trucks cut in half by the side of the roads

In Egypt, it is a practice dictated by economic concerns, the vehicles are used until their last breath.

You can see the carcasses of trucks or cars along the roads.

Most cars are old and still run on diesel or gasoline.

Which obviously contributes to making Cairo one of the most polluted capitals in the world.

Micro-enterprises to facilitate movement

Aware of the problem, the Egyptian government last year supported a project of ideas to facilitate traffic.

Many young people have therefore set up their micro-business of carpooling, telephone reservations, urban mapping or remote payment.

Think about traffic globally

Many times mentioned by the government, the fight against urban pollution would involve a desire to switch to electric cars and to equip the capital with buses and minibuses, which are also less polluting.

Modern vehicles exist, but most are cars worn to their last breath and patched up thanks to garages.

There is one at least every 3 to 4 km, both in Cairo and throughout the Nile Valley.

On the roads, it is not uncommon to come across all kinds of vehicles with smoking hoods.

For Jean-Luc Arnaud, specialist in Egypt, researcher at the CNRS, the National Center for Scientific Research, seconded to the University of Aix-en-Provence, nothing will change without a real transport policy: "

It's all a matter of track calibration.
In Cairo, we circulate where there is room and according to the time of day.
If a road is four-lane, it can become two-lane depending on the number of cars driving on it.
Moreover, around Cairo, all the axes are not connected, the bridges do not always end on main roads which are not really drawn.
The lines between the sidewalks and the roads are not there.
This creates congestion.
Add to that the thousands of old engines that run as best they can, without an anti-pollution system, it makes sense that air pollution continues.

He continues.

In Egypt, the constraint of stock transport

It is also Jean-Luc Arnaud who explains the impact of road congestion on the country's economy.

In Cairo, traffic jams have repercussions on the peripheral roads.

As a result, it is impossible to predict the exact time of arrival of the trucks.

Therefore, an anticipatory economy (adapted transport calculated according to demand) which can be done in Europe is impossible in Egypt.

Cairo new city connected by metro in 2022

As for the new section of line 3 of the metro, between Cairo and the new capital, the new Cairo-city (nearly 50 km from the current city), it should see the light of day, finally as an underground line, at the end of next year, in 2022.

Transport chronicle - Getting around Cairo, the Egyptian plague