Urban Planning Goes a Long Way

Five years ago I accompanied my parents on a trip to London where they were checking out a new property development near Greenwich, in the southeast suburban area of London. We had to take the tube from Oxford street to London Bridge where we would take the 20-minute train to our destination. Needless to say, my parents, who had wanted to invest in this particular area because the Olympics would be held nearby and it was said that the value would pick up in a few years, were discouraged. If we were planning on letting out this apartment to students, or anybody who has to work downtown, we would stand little chances. When we got there, seemingly disappointed, the developing company told them, as a selling point, that a new transport service called the DLR specific for this area would be launched by January 2009. Of course coming from an Egyptian background where we had been waiting for the third metro line to be launched since I can remember, we smirked and shared that look amongst ourselves. The area was beautiful, it was a riverside historical development where they maintained, by law, all facades of the listed building and developed numerous apartments inside. We ended up buying a small duplex and decided transport didn't matter because we would rent it to students in nearby Greenwich university. One year later, I started my master's degree in London and went to live in the apartment. I went home for Christmas of 2008 and when I came back in January 2009, lo and behold, the DLR was up and running as promised. Of course I had to call up my mother, father, brothers and everyone I know shocked with the fact that a government can keep a deadline and launch a service to connect a suburb to the city centre. And this reaction in itself was just sad. So used to little or no urban planning, I found it fascinating for a plan to actually come through as announced. So used to deadlines having absolutely no value or meaning, it was just a new experience to hear about a government sticking to a promised deadline. What was even worse is that I was so used to suburbs being developed every year with no attention at all paid to how people who don't have cars might get there, that I   wondered why launch a specific service to cater for dwellers of the southeast when they already had buses and trains. Now, three years later, the once almost deserted development is buzzing with residents, two newly opened pubs and restaurants that bring even more traffic to the area, and a promised shopping compound, cinemas and theaters to open soon in the area. You would think the highways and roads leading to the area would be busier; only with the increased frequency of bus and train services and the introduction of the DLR, they really are not. A week ago, in preparation for the increasing traffic during the 20 days of the Olympics, all public transport was staging a rehearsal for the diverted lines and revised schedules to accommodate the heavy traffic. Not only did they account for it, they're actually rehearsing it to see how well it is working. It reminded me of the times we had to walk from my place in Heliopolis to the Cairo Stadium to attend the games during the 2007 African Cup of Nations because there was no parking and no public transport to take the audience there. This reflects everything that is wrong with our urban planning — or the lack of to be more precise. Egypt's government sold massive plots of land on the outskirts of Cairo and  encouraged investors to direct their efforts to this area, which sounds rather wise on their part. Within 10 years five new areas were buzzing with new developments that offered more affordable housing for young couples or simply more space and fresher air for families. Sixth of October became a city in and on itself, so did the Fifth Settlement, Obour, Oraby and Shorouk cities. You've got the compounds, the residents, the shops, the factories and the businesses — but oops, you don't have transport. El Mehwar and El Da'ery (The Ring) roads sounded like great projects: But how didn't our wise urban planning authorities account for the future increase in population and traffic of those areas they so heavily promoted? Not one public transport vehicle goes to those areas, apart from taxis and microbuses which are private businesses and not government services. Not a bus, not a metro line, not the underground, not even charter buses. This is why the most successful of those cities has become El Rehab; simply because the compound has its own transportation which takes people to and from Rehab to the city centre and surrounding areas. You want the people there, make sure it will be physically possible for them to go there. Simple formula, one would think. With the DLR opening in our neighborhood, I see many more people moving in, those with cars, and those without. I also see many people working around here and commuting to their homes downtown or elsewhere because it's possible and easy. On the other hand, my father and mother in law moved back from Sixth of October because for everyday they had to spend at least 60 to 90 minutes on the Mehwar alone. A hairdresser I know in Egypt is a single mother, unemployed and in dire need of a job. When her former employer offered her a job in the Fifth Settlement, she couldn't take it, despite her financial needs. "It will take me over two hours to get there and even more to go home, and it will cost me LE 25 at least, it isn't worth it," she had told me. You see, it isn't even about traffic jams anymore. People, especially those who can't drive, won't go to the suburbs because it will cost them more time and money than they can afford. So you can go ahead and build all the residential compounds you want, transfer all businesses and even government facilities outside the city, but until we have proper transport to suburbs, and until we can stick to deadlines, the flow back from the suburbs into the city will go on and Cairo will simply get more crowded by the day. Off to the DLR for some downtown shopping — not only does it take me 40 minutes to navigate from the far south of the city to the heart of it, but I also don't avoid downtown like the plague because I can actually get there without being stuck for an hour on the October bridge. Oh, Egypt.