The closing last week in Jeddah of a major intersection revealed the size of the problem facing the city. As it turned out, this was only the tip of a much larger iceberg. The problem manifested itself when the intersection of King Fahd (Sitteen) Street and Wali Al-Ahd Street was closed in order to construct a flyover to ease traffic there. At that moment, we discovered there were no side streets to absorb the heavy flow of traffic. It was up to the confused and frustrated motorists to take whatever lanes, side streets and outlets they could find to reach their destination.
The same problem could happen at any time if another major street were closed for maintenance or for whatever reason — simply because there are no parallel side streets where traffic could be directed.
In the present situation, traffic was diverted to little-known narrow streets that are short in length and that run through densely populated areas. Some of side streets are designed to be no more than shortcuts; others simply lead nowhere. They are normally lined with shops and businesses with much of the space blocked by the vehicles serving these shops and those of people shopping and living in the area.
The main reason behind this problem is that Jeddah, a city of over two million inhabitants, has only two streets running its entire length and linking its north with its south. These are Sitteen Street and Madinah Road. The remaining streets either end feed into others or are blocked by buildings.
Based on what we now see, the disruption of traffic caused by closing that intersection should be looked at very seriously by city planners. It is a living example of the situation in our streets and an eye-opener to the chaos that will result once any main street is closed for any reason.
The proposed flyover will only solve part of the city’s perpetual traffic problem. Jeddah needs more flyovers, bridges and tunnels if the problem is to be solved permanently.
10 November 2002
