Spending hours stuck in traffic is a burden faced by everyone living in Egypt’s major cities, especially Cairo. With drivers and their passengers spending hours stuck in cars and buses, Hana Tarek looks at what is causing the jams and what the country should do about them.
By Hana Tarek – 6LT
Every adult in Egypt is complaining these days about traffic.
Traffic was bad before but now it’s becoming worse and worse. Drivers have to stay put in their cars waiting for around 
two or three hours just to go and come back from their work each day and all day we hear complaints that both the Ring Road and the 6th of October Bridge are blocked completely. Unfortunately now almost all main streets in Cairo are also blocked, especially during rush hours.
So what are the causes and how can we prevent this from becoming a disaster?
There are many causes of traffic jam in Egypt, I will try to highlight few of them. First there aren’t enough highways in major cities in Egypt. Not only that, but drivers are not following any of the traffic rules, while policemen are watching and doing nothing about it. There’s also no plan in place to handle car crashes which cause major blockages in the roads.
In my opinion the most important cause of this jam is the high population in the major cities in Egypt compared to other cities. This is because the standard of living and work opportunities are higher in those cities.
We know that there are plenty of traffic jams all over the world so what did these countries do? Did they solve this problem? Can we also do the same and prevent a disaster from happening?
Yes we can, but it will need hard work.
Firstly we should provide better transportation methods to decrease the number of cars on our streets. Secondly, 
buildings, especially offices, shouldn’t be allowed unless parking spaces are planned. Policemen should start enforcing traffic rules and we as Egyptians should start respecting them. I wish we could start very soon, but all I know is that Egyptians are not even trying to put in the right effort to solve this problem.
The country with the worse traffic condition is not Cairo, but Tokyo in Japan. After that comes Los Angeles then Sao Paulo.
I checked some opinions about the traffic problem and here are some answers. Reem Hussein was sure the problem would never be solved.
“No, not even in a million years that the traffic problem in Egypt will be over,” she said.
Meanwhile Leila Tarek was more optimistic.
“Yes, we can solve this, it’s better than some places in the world, but I agree it still needs a bit of working.”
For now the roads in Egypt are total chaos and it will become worse if we don’t do something about it.
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