JEDDAH - With the numerous ongoing road and public works projects in Jeddah, visitors who have flocked to the city for the one-week midterm school break that began yesterday are finding themselves stuck in a logjam of traffic.
"I have never seen Jeddah this crowded," said Hussein Al-Kathiri, a high school teacher. He added that his family plans to stay home as much as possible to avoid the chaos on the streets during the break.
The traffic conditions have been snarled by tens of major road projects, including roundabout removals, the construction of underpasses and flyovers, and the yearslong endeavor to install a sewage system in the city of over two million inhabitants.
Jeddah municipal spokesperson Ahmad Al-Ghamdi said that contractors have recently started nine major projects that will take between 10 and 24 months to complete. Even recreation spots, including the popular beach areas, are facing daily congestions since out-of-towners began arriving on Thursday.
Ahmad Al-Saadi, a Saudi resident of Al-Shati district near the Corniche, said that beaches look as crowded right now as they typically look during the peak Eid Al-Fitr holiday season. Any patch of green seems occupied, he added.
"Sometimes I see people parking by the main road just to sit inside a roundabout or any other green space they can find," he said.
Al-Saadi, who works as a creative director at an advertising agency, said that the congestions are so unbearable that it takes him triple the usual time to get back home from work. "I can't wait for the midterm vacations to end," he said.
Abdulraheem Al-Zahrani, a government employee, said that he lives near the airplane roundabout at Prince Majed Street, where a major underpass and flyover project is taking place. "Getting out of that area takes at least 15 minutes on normal days, but since the beginning of the vacation it takes almost an hour. I hav e started to think twice every time I want to go out," he said.
