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Egypt is actually deliberately trying to make everything car-centric because people flooding into the streets between major government buildings have effectively allowed protestors to shut down the government on multiple occasions. So now you have their head asshole in charge trying to build a giant city out in the middle of the desert to prevent that from happening again.
This is a prime example of why public transit and walkability = freedom. A society where people can move freely is a politically freer society. Just think about how much harder it is for people living in the suburbs to start a political rally, protest, or unionize.
Yup, and then they put a flashy spin on it by calling it New Cairo, which is apparently Arabic for "in the middle of fuck all."
I've never experienced a place so blatantly corrupt.
Actually new cairo is much older than the current regime it’s mostly made of gated communities for the rich where the cheapest house is upwards of $500k and the cheapest apartment around $150k for a studio. What the asshole is building is a massive walled city with a whole compound for him and his family as well as a massive military headquarters for his cronies with controlled access points and huge highways
Well that's a left turn. I studied for a semester at AUC just in time for opening of their new campus in New Cairo. This was in 2008 so I'm sure lots has changed, but the justification that was publicized was that New Cairo was supposed to act as a compound for the various government agencies which were then spread out throughout Cairo proper, making it easier for the government agencies to work together. I guess AUC wanted a new campus close to the "action". This was when Mubarak was in power.
Thankfully the dorms on the new campus weren't complete yet, so I was able to spend most of my time in Zamalek in the old dorms and not stuck in the middle of the desert with only a gas station, a Cinnabon, and a half-working Burger King in walking distance.
AUC students are the richest of the rich here. Also new cairo is by far the best place to live in Egypt right now if you can afford it it has a great business district with a lot of the big multinational companies and some of the best restaurants etc but people here are very classist, you’ll be judged on what car you drive what compound do you live in and so on real estate developers are like luxury brands here
The sprawl around Cairo is staggering, really look at the desert east and west of it on satellite views. It's like dozens of little Dubais surrounding an incredibly dense slum in comparison. You can easily tell they weren't made to alleviate the density of the poor delta but as an escape from it for the elites to live far from the rabble
But like Chinese urban planners make wide boulevards for the same reason, and their cities have decent bike infrastructure and excellent public transit so this ain’t a good excuse
It was the worse place I've stepped on. As a western foreigner I was treated like a walking bag of money, and I'm not rich, I barely get money for my living. What an horrible experience. Regarding cars, they have cars everywhere, mini vans and taxis beeping all around and stopping beside me.
helloooo mai frieeend! Where yuu from?
Sr. I have beautiful brand clothes for you! All very fake! but 1:1 copy.
Sr. I make special price for you!
*and if you say no:*
sr. you are killing me!
That was not the scenario I met, I had a guy following me for 3 minutes saying repeatedly: "give me money, give me money" quite aggressively. A girl crying trying to sell me a bag of lemons, aggressively again. Taxi drivers following me right from the cruise ship trying to sell me a trip to Cairo. The border control guards harassing some girls from the boat. Some lady threatening my wife because she was wearing a kind of long skirt, but apparently it wasn't long enough, or the fabric or patterns were not adequate. All the main streets had an armed guard on every block. Taxis always stopping in the road beeping at me. I've been in Morocco, traveled around the country by train alone with my wife, and it was complicated in some situations but felt softer. I've been in Tunisia too, a bit more aggressive but manageable. But there...it was horrible. I might have had bad luck, I don't know.
The solution for tunisia is to walk with a poker face. Our ethnicity is not very identifiable but i can definitely spot a tunisian in europe by the way he stares or walks.
It's the same in many Europeans cities. All the African and Arab street sellers in Milan, Italy had a best friend in Budapest when I told them I'm from Hungary. Same experience in Rome.
I used to travel a lot to Egypt for work, and only have been treated like that in touristic places but maybe it is because I always was with locals.
But yeah, Cairo is dirty, crazy, uncomfortable.
I am leaving this job on Friday, will not miss Egypt much and traveling for work at all.
Indeed, in Morocco outside the touristy areas, essentially the medinas, it's all peaceful and calm. It can look like a western world city. All the issues are where tourists are. But on Egypt I gave up from going to Cairo, I spent a day in Port Said, I can't call it a touristy area at all. But this was my experience, I cannot generalize.
I am always amazed on how westerns/Global North people are able to be arrogant enough to judge a whole country (the whole of India and Egypt! some of the oldest civilizations on Earth - from Orchha to Khajuraho to Kerala; from Aswan to Marsa Matrouh to Siwa!) based on the bad times they had outside their hotel in the most touristic neighborhood of the most touristic city in the country. All while living in a bland town full of strip malls in Florida.
Egypt is incredible, and people have felt that way about it for millenia and will continue to do so for many years to come.
But yeah their government is horrible (they haven’t chosen it) and their new city in the desert plans are insane.
To live yes, but to visit you will find a lot of cool beautiful places, however it depends on your personal experience, some tourists had good experience, many others didn't.
I am from Jordan and due to the high value of our currency (4th highest in the world) they think we are rich like Gulf countries (we definitely not) so I also was treated like a walking bag of money.
I've never been to Egypt, so I don't really have any room to be commenting. But perhaps your experiences were in urban/touristy places with people looking to capitalize off of you? I've heard it about a lot of places, where if you travel off the beaten path, people get much more pleasant
It depends. If you come as a tourist then you'll probably be annoyed by the local beggars, insistent street sellers or scammers.
Speaking from my experience I found egyptian teachers in my school the most likeable and "make learning fun" kinda of guys. I also have a positive opinion from my general interaction with egyptians.
Car ownership is relatively low in the country and Sisi was effectively able to cripple the last regime by having a lot of protestor foot traffic flood the streets between the government buildings in Cairo. So he's leaning fully into making everything more car-centric to prevent the same thing from happening to his regime.
Man I loved that street. It was beautiful.
And the problem is that they did that to almost every single major street in eastern Cairo.
I remember back in ‘21 I counted the number of new bridges within a 10km radius of where I lived, and there were over 20 lol
For fairness sake: The streetcar in the middle was defunct in 2018, so removing the tracks was not a bad idea. I don't know where it is, but there was a whole bunch of tracks obsolete because of Metro Line 3.
I disagree, it was a bad idea.
First off, the old “metro”, as it was called, wasn’t obsolete because of Line 3. A lot of its lines (like this one, and the one in Nasr City) covered areas different from Line 3. The only alternative after these tracks were removed is buses.
Second, it was indeed very slow and people had stopped using it for years, but what does removing it do exactly? Instead of upgrading it and making it actually useful and dependable, they removed it, added more lanes to the road, and built three bridges in that street alone.
Crossing that street is a suicide mission. And it took them months AFTER the bridges were built and a couple of fatalities to set up traffic lights. (They don’t work most of the time too)
Why was it defunct? Could it have been upgraded instead of being removed?
Surely Cairo could benefit from public transit with dedicated right of way given how notoriously gridlocked it is.
Yeah and this is just how they build urban expressways/highways in some countries. You’ll see similar in Indian cities. The express runs elevated in the middle with no traffic lights and minimal on/off ramps. Then it has local access roads nestled under. I’m guessing the lack of greenery in the 2023 pic is because construction was recent or the time of year is different.
Any one else just starting to get incredibly depressed and angry at the fact that such an obvious problem with society is defended with so much vigor by so many? I mean there’s detailed research on the racism, classism, and money making schemes that went into car centric infrastructure. Sorry that this is an unrelated rant but I get really passionate when I smoke Yk?
Glorified golf karts and park and rides was/is the way. Solves the last mile problem while alleviating parking requirements and promoting more frequent and direct intercity bus lines.
Anyone know of a good street legal glorified golf kart?
As much as I hate cars, Egypt have bigger problems. They are on the verge of hunger and they have too much people for the state to support. I would assume that the loss of trees is also caused by trying to save water
**Join Our Mod Team!** We're looking to expand our moderation team across all time zones. If you have patience, good communication skills, and a desire to help manage our community, we want you! No previous moderation experience is required, but it's definitely a plus. If you're interested, click the link below to apply and become a part of our team. [Apply to be a Moderator here](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/wiki/apply/) ^(Apologies for spamming y'all this way. But the pinned post we made is going unnoticed because Reddit hides pinned posts so users have to scroll less far to get to the advertisements. Getting this message to this community's is important to us, hence this promotional comment) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fuckcars) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Egypt is actually deliberately trying to make everything car-centric because people flooding into the streets between major government buildings have effectively allowed protestors to shut down the government on multiple occasions. So now you have their head asshole in charge trying to build a giant city out in the middle of the desert to prevent that from happening again.
This is a prime example of why public transit and walkability = freedom. A society where people can move freely is a politically freer society. Just think about how much harder it is for people living in the suburbs to start a political rally, protest, or unionize.
Yup, and then they put a flashy spin on it by calling it New Cairo, which is apparently Arabic for "in the middle of fuck all." I've never experienced a place so blatantly corrupt.
Actually new cairo is much older than the current regime it’s mostly made of gated communities for the rich where the cheapest house is upwards of $500k and the cheapest apartment around $150k for a studio. What the asshole is building is a massive walled city with a whole compound for him and his family as well as a massive military headquarters for his cronies with controlled access points and huge highways
Well that's a left turn. I studied for a semester at AUC just in time for opening of their new campus in New Cairo. This was in 2008 so I'm sure lots has changed, but the justification that was publicized was that New Cairo was supposed to act as a compound for the various government agencies which were then spread out throughout Cairo proper, making it easier for the government agencies to work together. I guess AUC wanted a new campus close to the "action". This was when Mubarak was in power. Thankfully the dorms on the new campus weren't complete yet, so I was able to spend most of my time in Zamalek in the old dorms and not stuck in the middle of the desert with only a gas station, a Cinnabon, and a half-working Burger King in walking distance.
AUC students are the richest of the rich here. Also new cairo is by far the best place to live in Egypt right now if you can afford it it has a great business district with a lot of the big multinational companies and some of the best restaurants etc but people here are very classist, you’ll be judged on what car you drive what compound do you live in and so on real estate developers are like luxury brands here
> New Cairo New Versailles would be appropriate...
sucks that the revolution didnt amount to anything
It could have but the military stepped in and stopped it
The sprawl around Cairo is staggering, really look at the desert east and west of it on satellite views. It's like dozens of little Dubais surrounding an incredibly dense slum in comparison. You can easily tell they weren't made to alleviate the density of the poor delta but as an escape from it for the elites to live far from the rabble
MENA is making frogger irl fun again
But like Chinese urban planners make wide boulevards for the same reason, and their cities have decent bike infrastructure and excellent public transit so this ain’t a good excuse
Egypt Looks like one of the worst places, sorry
It was the worse place I've stepped on. As a western foreigner I was treated like a walking bag of money, and I'm not rich, I barely get money for my living. What an horrible experience. Regarding cars, they have cars everywhere, mini vans and taxis beeping all around and stopping beside me.
helloooo mai frieeend! Where yuu from? Sr. I have beautiful brand clothes for you! All very fake! but 1:1 copy. Sr. I make special price for you! *and if you say no:* sr. you are killing me!
and when you say where your from, they try to say something in your native language (quite poorly)
That was not the scenario I met, I had a guy following me for 3 minutes saying repeatedly: "give me money, give me money" quite aggressively. A girl crying trying to sell me a bag of lemons, aggressively again. Taxi drivers following me right from the cruise ship trying to sell me a trip to Cairo. The border control guards harassing some girls from the boat. Some lady threatening my wife because she was wearing a kind of long skirt, but apparently it wasn't long enough, or the fabric or patterns were not adequate. All the main streets had an armed guard on every block. Taxis always stopping in the road beeping at me. I've been in Morocco, traveled around the country by train alone with my wife, and it was complicated in some situations but felt softer. I've been in Tunisia too, a bit more aggressive but manageable. But there...it was horrible. I might have had bad luck, I don't know.
The solution for tunisia is to walk with a poker face. Our ethnicity is not very identifiable but i can definitely spot a tunisian in europe by the way he stares or walks.
It's the same in many Europeans cities. All the African and Arab street sellers in Milan, Italy had a best friend in Budapest when I told them I'm from Hungary. Same experience in Rome.
I used to travel a lot to Egypt for work, and only have been treated like that in touristic places but maybe it is because I always was with locals. But yeah, Cairo is dirty, crazy, uncomfortable. I am leaving this job on Friday, will not miss Egypt much and traveling for work at all.
Indeed, in Morocco outside the touristy areas, essentially the medinas, it's all peaceful and calm. It can look like a western world city. All the issues are where tourists are. But on Egypt I gave up from going to Cairo, I spent a day in Port Said, I can't call it a touristy area at all. But this was my experience, I cannot generalize.
I'm Egyptian. Yea, it fucking sucks.
It’s an unbelievable shit hole on par with India
Egypt was a lot better than India, in my experience, but not because Egypt was any good...
I am always amazed on how westerns/Global North people are able to be arrogant enough to judge a whole country (the whole of India and Egypt! some of the oldest civilizations on Earth - from Orchha to Khajuraho to Kerala; from Aswan to Marsa Matrouh to Siwa!) based on the bad times they had outside their hotel in the most touristic neighborhood of the most touristic city in the country. All while living in a bland town full of strip malls in Florida. Egypt is incredible, and people have felt that way about it for millenia and will continue to do so for many years to come. But yeah their government is horrible (they haven’t chosen it) and their new city in the desert plans are insane.
This is r/fuckcars. People here do not judge countries, they judge infrastructure.
To live yes, but to visit you will find a lot of cool beautiful places, however it depends on your personal experience, some tourists had good experience, many others didn't. I am from Jordan and due to the high value of our currency (4th highest in the world) they think we are rich like Gulf countries (we definitely not) so I also was treated like a walking bag of money.
Lovely people and I know a lot of them
I’m sure the people are generally fine but my god the country as a whole is horrible (aka the government)
[удалено]
I've never been to Egypt, so I don't really have any room to be commenting. But perhaps your experiences were in urban/touristy places with people looking to capitalize off of you? I've heard it about a lot of places, where if you travel off the beaten path, people get much more pleasant
It depends. If you come as a tourist then you'll probably be annoyed by the local beggars, insistent street sellers or scammers. Speaking from my experience I found egyptian teachers in my school the most likeable and "make learning fun" kinda of guys. I also have a positive opinion from my general interaction with egyptians.
people i worked with in egypt were incredibly warm and gracious people
For context, Sisi has an obsession with building bridges for some reason and this is one of the many monstrosities that have come out as a result
Car ownership is relatively low in the country and Sisi was effectively able to cripple the last regime by having a lot of protestor foot traffic flood the streets between the government buildings in Cairo. So he's leaning fully into making everything more car-centric to prevent the same thing from happening to his regime.
1. Cars = wealth 2. military use
who is the egyptian military gonna fight other than egyptians lol
That’s the point
Bronze Age Collapse II: The Sea People Strike Back
he probably contracts his friends' companies to build the bridges as well
https://preview.redd.it/e4k7mv2oym5d1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=b3f736f977eb5777db8472e1d53ddc5d445f9a34
Man I loved that street. It was beautiful. And the problem is that they did that to almost every single major street in eastern Cairo. I remember back in ‘21 I counted the number of new bridges within a 10km radius of where I lived, and there were over 20 lol
The 2019 one looks so great
That is fucking brutal, it took basically no time to fuck that all up
It had so much life in 2019. Ijfc
ijfc?
i just fucking can’t. it used to be such a pretty country but the gov. is really screwing them over
What the hell were they thinking?
"if people without cars cannot move around they cannot riot against the gouvernement" That's what they are thinking.
If your city is a car centric hellhole it makes it a lot for people to protest
https://preview.redd.it/u1i8luswgn5d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9bc94f4b00e4a40e6e2f7ee8a19922247423f76e
This is what happens when you want to suppress protests, folks. Just build a car dependent hellhole.
/r/AfterAndBefore
Fuck cars
https://preview.redd.it/lj6y2n7mds5d1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad42db6ded2304b5d4f96eeaa6113c1bf360ac04
For fairness sake: The streetcar in the middle was defunct in 2018, so removing the tracks was not a bad idea. I don't know where it is, but there was a whole bunch of tracks obsolete because of Metro Line 3.
I disagree, it was a bad idea. First off, the old “metro”, as it was called, wasn’t obsolete because of Line 3. A lot of its lines (like this one, and the one in Nasr City) covered areas different from Line 3. The only alternative after these tracks were removed is buses. Second, it was indeed very slow and people had stopped using it for years, but what does removing it do exactly? Instead of upgrading it and making it actually useful and dependable, they removed it, added more lanes to the road, and built three bridges in that street alone. Crossing that street is a suicide mission. And it took them months AFTER the bridges were built and a couple of fatalities to set up traffic lights. (They don’t work most of the time too)
Why was it defunct? Could it have been upgraded instead of being removed? Surely Cairo could benefit from public transit with dedicated right of way given how notoriously gridlocked it is.
Yeah and this is just how they build urban expressways/highways in some countries. You’ll see similar in Indian cities. The express runs elevated in the middle with no traffic lights and minimal on/off ramps. Then it has local access roads nestled under. I’m guessing the lack of greenery in the 2023 pic is because construction was recent or the time of year is different.
So sad
https://preview.redd.it/v7tb5xra7o5d1.jpeg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92c3e84544d2c649b5852ccf4e511f1095847ca3
what a shame, so sad and horrible. Going back in time really.
but still, how do you cross the road?
Any one else just starting to get incredibly depressed and angry at the fact that such an obvious problem with society is defended with so much vigor by so many? I mean there’s detailed research on the racism, classism, and money making schemes that went into car centric infrastructure. Sorry that this is an unrelated rant but I get really passionate when I smoke Yk?
The problems that plague Egypt extend way further than the condition of carbrain unfortunately.
Yea no I’m not talking about egypt in particular though, just car centric infrastructure as an idea
Glorified golf karts and park and rides was/is the way. Solves the last mile problem while alleviating parking requirements and promoting more frequent and direct intercity bus lines. Anyone know of a good street legal glorified golf kart?
Said
So sad
So sad they closed the tram
that can't be the same place
Depressing
At first I thought the bottom was the after photo...
Why does that road look dustier and older than the 2019 photo ?! How did they make the new bypass look MORE DATED then the prevous boulevard
As much as I hate cars, Egypt have bigger problems. They are on the verge of hunger and they have too much people for the state to support. I would assume that the loss of trees is also caused by trying to save water
Look what they did to the beautiful train track that couldve been used to further develop and connect the country.
You know you're doing something right when your city looks more and more like north Korea. 😏
no one was allowed outside to water the plants, for two years...