Riyadh’s unending rush hour

Last week, I drove from the Eastern Province to Riyadh. Driving was very comfortable and can be time-saving compared to flying.
If you need to fly, then you must buy a ticket, drive to the airport, fly and then catch a cab to your destination. So, traveling by car is much more convenient. You leave any time you want and drive back whenever you finish your visit to Riyadh. The drive from Alkhobar is less than four hours and the highway is a world-class three-lane highway.
There is one little problem when you get to Riyadh. Yes, it took me less than four hours to cover the 400-km trip, but it took me 90 minutes to get to my hotel from the time I reached Riyadh proper.
Riyadh is one of the biggest cities in the Kingdom and has the most well maintained wide roads. Its main King Fahad road is a three-lane highway in addition to four lanes for local access roads. Riyadh also has one of the widest ring (loop) roads in the world. There are thousands of other roads and streets in Riyadh, which are three or four lanes wide, but driving in the streets of Riyadh is getting worse each year, and rush hour is a 24/7 event. I drove in Riyadh in morning, evening and very late at night — at all times the roads were jammed with cars and traffic was very slow.
Indeed, traffic congestion in Riyadh has many negative impacts on the lives of residents in Riyadh. Drivers and passengers alike suffer too much stress on the roads, which is affecting their temperament. It is very hard to have a plan and an estimated time for your journey. In fact, many people now refrain from visiting others because of the long hours that can be spent on the road. And because of the stress, drivers are abusing the use of their car’s horns, so Riyadh is becoming a noise- polluted city because of this habit.
People are subjected to the irritating noise of car horns near family homes, Mosques, schools and hospitals.
Traffic police cars are plenty and they can make a difference to regulating traffic, but still many drivers ignore traffic regulations.
The population of Riyadh in on a steady rise and the number of vehicles is also on the rise, and there are many ways to reduce the pressure put on its streets and roads. Most importantly, and in the very near future, there must be serious plans to implement the building a modern public transportation system — connecting the main areas of Riyadh, such as the airport, Riyadh city center and Al-Olaya area. The earlier the better, otherwise soon it will become increasingly difficult to handle the horrible traffic jams in Riyadh.
Meanwhile, it is very important for the Municipality to regulate traffic congestion better and implement stricter traffic rules and harder penalties for those who break them. Speeding and reckless driving is one of the main reasons of the very high number of road fatalities in Saudi Arabia.

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